"wait, what did I just copy?"
You copy things all day and then just... hope. Hope it grabbed the right thing. Hope that website didn't sneak in a "read more at example.com" footer. Hope the GIF is actually a GIF and not a sad frozen first frame. PastePeek is the little friend that peeks at your clipboard and shows you, for half a second, what you actually copied.
That's it. That's the app. It's quietly delightful.
PastePeek is a native macOS app (macOS 14 and up). Built with Swift and a healthy amount of affection.
open PastePeek.xcodeproj # then hit RunVia CLI
xcodebuild -project PastePeek.xcodeproj -scheme PastePeek -configuration Debug build
open ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/PastePeek-*/Build/Products/Debug/PastePeek.appWant PastePeek running quietly in the background and starting itself at every login? You don't need a paid Developer account — an ad-hoc-signed build plus a personal LaunchAgent is enough for your own Mac.
./BuildSupport/install-local.shThat script builds a Release (ad-hoc signed), installs it to
/Applications/PastePeek.app, and writes a LaunchAgent to
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.lizard.pastepeek.agent.plist that launches it with
--background (so it stays invisible). RunAtLoad starts it at login and
KeepAlive brings it back if it ever quits. Re-run the script any time after
changing the code to pick up a new build.
Handy follow-ups:
launchctl print gui/$(id -u)/com.lizard.pastepeek.agent # status
launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/com.lizard.pastepeek.agent # stop it now
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.lizard.pastepeek.agent.plist # don't start at loginSince PastePeek is an accessory app (no Dock or menu-bar icon), its only UI once
running is the corner toast. To reach Settings, launch it without the background
flag: open -a PastePeek.
Curious how it works? The design notes live in docs/: how it classifies clipboard content, how it stays invisible, and the little decisions that add up to something that feels nice to use.