mnml

A keyboard-first
clipboard for Windows & Mac.

Press Alt twice on Windows or Option twice on Mac. Paste from history, launch apps and settings, save reusable snippets. One 440 × 540 window. Local SQLite. No telemetry.

Download for Windows v0.3.10 · .exe · Windows 10 / 11 · x64 Download for macOS v0.3.10 · .dmg · macOS 12+ · Apple Silicon

Free and MIT-licensed. Latest release v0.3.10 · installs in seconds, uninstalls cleanly. On first launch, macOS asks for Accessibility and Input Monitoring so the global hotkey works.

Built around four ideas

  1. 01

    One window

    440 × 540. One tab strip. Categories filter clipboard items, snippets, apps, and system settings, all in the same surface.

  2. 02

    One hotkey, always live

    Double-tap Alt on Windows or Option on Mac. The window appears at your cursor, the search field already has focus. mnml auto-launches at login so the hotkey is ready the moment you sign in.

  3. 03

    One paste

    Click or press Enter. mnml hides, your previous window regains focus, and paste fires automatically (Ctrl + V / ⌘V).

  4. 04

    Local only, never your passwords

    SQLite on disk. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry, no analytics. mnml honors the system "do not record" flag, so password-manager and browser-password content is never captured. The only network calls are the daily update check and, when you copy a URL, a one-time title fetch so the entry shows a readable name instead of a raw link; your copied text and images never leave your device. Full detail in the privacy policy.

What's in it

Clipboard

Searchable text, links, images

Whatever you copy lands in the history. Text, URLs (with titles when fetchable), PNG screenshots (rendered as 96 px thumbnails). Full-text search via SQLite FTS5 with a LIKE fallback. Pin items to keep them past the configurable rotation cap. Press Ctrl + a number to paste the first nine instantly. Pasting strips formatting, so you always get clean plain text.

Snippets

Reusable text, labelled and pasted in one click

Save anything: email signatures, regex patterns, command-line incantations, addresses. Hover any clipboard row to one-click save it as a snippet, or write a new one with a label and content. Snippets live in their own SQLite table; they don't rotate out.

Launcher

Apps + system settings, all in the same search

On Windows: Start-Menu shortcuts plus ~80 curated ms-settings: deep links (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Display, Sound, Update, Privacy, Accessibility, Game Bar, …) plus classic .msc / .cpl tools. On Mac: Applications and System Settings. Type a few letters and hit Enter.

Sync

Point at Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud. Your clipboard follows you.

Settings > Storage folder > pick any folder. mnml moves the SQLite database, snippets, and images there. Choose a synced folder and a fresh install on a second machine, pointed at the same place, picks up your full history instantly. One source of truth, no accounts, no cloud middleman.

Under the hood

Renderer bundle
228 KB
Runtime deps
better-sqlite3, uiohook-napi, electron-updater
Window size
440 × 540, fixed
Search
FTS5 BM25 with LIKE fallback
Foreground activation
Native Win32 via PowerShell + AttachThreadInput
Accessibility
WCAG AA contrast both themes · keyboard nav across every section

Recent updates

Current release v0.3.10 (July 2026) ships for both platforms: Windows .exe and macOS .dmg (.zip). Older builds auto-update via the in-app banner when a newer release is available.

v0.3.10 — stuck / unresponsive summon hardening

  • Reload recovers cleanly. Renderer readiness re-arms after every load so an unresponsive→reload cycle no longer bricks the next summon.
  • No ghost panels. Every show path re-enables mouse input so a visible window is never left click-through.
  • Self-heal + tray escape. Stuck readiness or failed search-focus IPC triggers a bounded reload; tray offers Reload panel and Open log.

v0.3.9 — leaner under load + paste/show stability

  • Smoother screenshots. Heavy image encode/write is deferred so hotkeys and the poll tick stay responsive.
  • Tighter history & thumbs. Max items capped at 1 000; thumbnails LRU-capped and cleared when the panel hides.
  • Safer paste & summon. Show waits out mid-paste; settle timers cancel on quit; restore helper failures clear paste locks.
  • Link storms contained. At most two concurrent title fetches; queue capped.
  • macOS build current. Notarized Apple Silicon .dmg / .zip ship with this release alongside Windows.

v0.3.8 — snappier summon & less background work

  • Faster summon & search. Focus work consolidated in the main process; typing no longer flashes the list empty.
  • Lazy loading. Image thumbnails, app icons, saved snippets, and Settings load only when needed.
  • Less CPU while hidden. Clipboard polling slows when the panel is closed; the Windows foreground helper starts on demand.
  • No favicon network calls. Link rows use a local icon — no Google fetch per row.

v0.3.7 — stuck-window & lag fixes

  • No more wedged panel. A failed paste/restore can no longer leave the window stuck open with Alt-Alt dead.
  • Reliable close on Windows. Hide retries and re-checks instead of wrongly re-showing the panel.
  • Survives sleep. Click-outside dismiss and double-Alt are re-armed after the PC wakes or you unlock.
  • Less lag. The clipboard watcher skips needless image decoding, and summon does less work.

v0.3.6 — stability hardening

  • Safer IPC. Setting keys allowlisted; search and snippet sizes capped; clean shutdown cancels all dismiss timers.

v0.3.5 — bug hunt fixes

  • No stuck panel after a failed restore — blur suppress is released correctly.
  • Shift-click copy no longer dismisses the panel during clipboard write.
  • Stale blur timers cancelled on every re-summon.

v0.3.4 — dismiss/paste hardening

  • Paste arms earlier. Dismiss is blocked during clipboard restore I/O, not only at hide time.
  • Mousedown-only outside dismiss. Releasing the mouse outside after an in-window press no longer closes the panel.
  • Failed hide recovery. If the OS window fails to hide, paste state is cleared and focus returns to the panel.

v0.3.3 — row click paste + shrink fix

  • No shrink flash. The list clears only after the panel hides, not before.
  • Paste on row click when Auto-paste is enabled in Settings.

v0.3.2 — click + paste fix

  • HiDPI click dismiss. In-app clicks no longer close the window on high-DPI displays.
  • Paste on row click works again when Auto-paste is enabled in Settings.

v0.3.0 — macOS (beta)

  • macOS beta. Apple Silicon arm64 DMG/ZIP, double-tap Option to summon, ⌘1–9 quick-paste, auto-paste with focus restore, Applications + System Settings launcher.
  • CI. Manual release workflow for Windows + macOS (saves GitHub Actions minutes).

v0.2.46 — startup hotfix

  • Fix broken v0.2.45 update. App no longer exits on launch — SQLite native bindings are rebuilt and verified before every release build.

v0.2.45 — dismiss, paste, and security

  • Click-outside and Alt-Tab dismiss. Outside clicks use uIOhook screen coordinates plus mouseup; a focus watchdog hides when focus leaves — including when the pointer still sits over the always-on-top panel.
  • Paste reliability. Auto-paste runs under a paste-flow lock until Ctrl + V fires; double-Alt cannot resummon mid-restore; stalled paste clears after 2.5 s.
  • Security. Vite and Electron dependency patches; marketing site CSP and X-Frame-Options headers with npm run check:site-headers validation.
  • Polish. Settings no longer reopens after Alt-Alt hide; Enter waits for app search; quick-paste respects in-flight search; IPC id/limit validation.

v0.2.44 — paste, focus, and polish

  • Click to paste and close. Choosing a row copies to the clipboard, hides mnml, restores the app you were using, and sends Ctrl + V — in one atomic step, without the window popping back open.
  • Paste targets the right window. mnml records which app had focus before you summoned it, so auto-paste no longer lands on mnml itself.
  • Bug-hunt fixes. Search no longer sticks on “Searching…”, rapid deletes stay deleted, failed app launches keep the picker open, image restores validate file paths, snippet save can’t double-submit, and ↑ from the first clipboard row returns to search.

v0.2.43 — security hardening

  • Path traversal guards on database files, clipboard images, Start Menu indexing, and build scripts.
  • Release CI pinned to windows-2022 for predictable builds.

v0.2.42 — window interaction and auto-paste

  • Clicking buttons inside mnml no longer dismisses the window by mistake.
  • Auto-paste restores the correct clipboard format (text vs screenshot) and waits for foreground restore before Ctrl + V.
  • Keyboard and focus fixes: Esc vs search, settings focus trap, stale search rows, pin reorder highlight, Shift-click to copy without pasting.
  • Privacy and safety: concealed clipboard content fail-closed, app launch allowlist, uIOhook starts even if the hotkey fails.
  • Download and auto-update base URL moved to mnml.nxyz.art.

Get it

Windows and macOS. No setup wizard, no account. Lives in the tray / menu bar and can auto-launch at login so the hotkey is always one keypress away.

Download for Windows v0.3.10 · .exe · Windows 10 / 11 · x64 Download for macOS v0.3.10 · .dmg · macOS 12+ · Apple Silicon

Free, MIT-licensed. Uninstall any time via Windows Settings or by moving mnml to the Trash on Mac. Also available as a macOS .zip. Questions or feedback: info@nxyz.art.