Ditto
FreeEverything you ever copied is still there, one hotkey away
A clipboard history manager for Windows. It keeps every text, image and file path you have copied, recalled through a hotkey with search, pinned frequently used entries and grouping. Data lives in a local database, with optional encryption and sync between machines on a local network. The installer is about 6 MB.
Why we picked it
"The thing I just copied got overwritten" is a small frustration everyone hits several times a day. Windows has had clipboard history since Windows 10 (Win+V), but it holds 25 items, clears on restart, cannot be searched, and needs cloud sync to cross devices.
Ditto has been doing this job for nearly two decades. 6,953 stars, GPL-3.0, a 6 MB installer.
Its premise: everything you copy is kept. A hotkey (Ctrl+backtick by default) brings up the list with the most recent on top, and typing searches the entire history — which is where it most exceeds the built-in feature. Enter pastes the match.
Useful capabilities:
- Full-text search. That order number, code snippet or address you copied last week comes back from a few remembered characters. History length is configurable into the thousands or unlimited.
- Pinned entries. Signatures, frequent addresses and template text stay at the top instead of being pushed out by new content.
- Multiple formats. Plain text, rich text, HTML, images and file paths are all retained, and "paste as plain text" strips formatting — a feature worth the install on its own.
- Groups to keep work and personal material separate.
- Local network sync between machines without a cloud service.
- Encrypted storage with a password on the database.
To be clear about:
- Windows only. macOS equivalents are Maccy or Raycast's clipboard feature; Linux has CopyQ, which is cross-platform and also runs on Windows.
- Releases have slowed. The current version, 3.25.113.0, shipped in September 2025, and the repository still saw commits through 2026 without frequent releases. It is a mature, stable tool rather than an abandoned one, but do not expect new features.
- Think about the privacy implications. It records everything you copy — including passwords copied out of a password manager. Exclude your password manager's process in settings, or encrypt the database, and be careful on shared computers. This is not a flaw in Ditto; it is inherent to every clipboard history tool.
If you copy and paste heavily, this is the kind of tool you cannot give up a week after installing.