Copy and paste on a Mac uses Command rather than Control, which trips up everyone arriving from Windows for roughly a fortnight. Past that, there are four or five variations that are genuinely worth learning, because they solve problems people otherwise fix by hand.
The basics
- Command + C copies
- Command + X cuts
- Command + V pastes
- Command + A selects everything
- Command + Z undoes
The Command key sits either side of the space bar and carries a looped square symbol. On a non-Apple keyboard plugged into a Mac, it is usually the Windows key.
You can also right-click a selection and choose from the menu, or use Edit in the menu bar, which is worth glancing at because it shows the shortcut beside each command.
Paste without the formatting
Command + Shift + Option + V
This is the single most useful shortcut on the list. Copying from a web page normally drags the font, size, colour and line spacing along with the words, so pasted text arrives looking nothing like the document around it.
Paste and Match Style strips all of that and adopts the formatting of wherever you are pasting. It is an awkward four-finger stretch, and it saves more time than any other shortcut here.
A few apps use plain Command + Shift + V instead. If the four-key version does nothing, try the three-key one.
Cutting files in Finder
Command + X does not work on files. Press it in Finder and nothing happens, which convinces a lot of people the Mac cannot move files by keyboard. It can; the sequence is just different.
Copy the file with Command + C, go to the destination, then press Command + Option + V. That pastes and removes the original, which is what cut and paste means.
The design reasoning is that a cut file in limbo is dangerous. If you cut a file and then never paste it, or the machine restarts in between, where does the file live? Apple chose to make the move happen at the moment of pasting instead.
Copying between your Mac and your iPhone
Universal Clipboard means anything you copy on one Apple device can be pasted on another. Copy a paragraph on your phone, press Command + V on the Mac, and it appears.
It requires both devices signed into the same Apple account, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Handoff switched on. Handoff lives under System Settings, General, AirDrop and Handoff.
When it fails, it is nearly always Handoff switched off on one device, or the two being signed into different accounts. It also expires after a couple of minutes, so it is for immediate transfers rather than storage.
The clipboard only holds one thing
macOS keeps exactly one item. Copy something new and the previous item is gone, with no history and no way back.
You can see what is currently held by opening Finder and choosing Edit, Show Clipboard. That is the entire built-in clipboard management story.
If you copy and paste all day, a clipboard manager that keeps a history is the most worthwhile small utility you can add to a Mac. Several good ones exist, free and paid. Be aware that any such tool by design records everything you copy, passwords included, so choose one that lets you exclude password managers.
Two more worth knowing
Command + Shift + 4 takes a screenshot of an area you drag. Hold Control as well and it goes to the clipboard instead of the desktop, ready to paste straight into a message.
Command + Option + Shift + Z is redo in most applications, for when undo went one step too far.
When paste stops working entirely
Occasionally the clipboard jams and pasting does nothing anywhere. The cause is usually the background process that manages it having got stuck.
Open Activity Monitor, search for pboard, select it and quit it. It restarts automatically within a second or two and the clipboard works again. This is far quicker than restarting, and it fixes the problem almost every time.
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