Paste as plain text on your Mac
Copy a paragraph from a web page and paste it into your notes, and the font, size and colors come along. SupaClip pastes the same item as plain text with one change: hold ⌥ when you press return. It works the same in every app, so you stop hunting for each app's own menu item.
macOS 14 or later · Signed and notarized by Apple · Free for 7 days · 14-day refund
How to do it with SupaClip
- Copy the text as usual, from a web page, a PDF, Mail or anywhere else.
- Click into the app where it should go and press ⌘⇧V. The item you just copied is selected.
- Press ⌥↩. SupaClip puts the plain text on the clipboard and pastes it for you.
- For an older item, use ⌘⌥1 to ⌘⌥9 to paste one of the first nine as plain text, or type a few letters to find it first.
With what's built into macOS
Most Apple apps have Edit, then Paste and Match Style, shortcut ⌥⇧⌘V. It drops the source formatting and uses the formatting of the place you paste into. Other apps name it Paste Without Formatting, often with ⇧⌘V, and a few have no such command. In TextEdit you can also choose Format, then Make Plain Text (⇧⌘T), which converts the whole document.
The catch is that the shortcut changes from app to app, and some web editors keep styling anyway. You also have to decide before you paste. SupaClip keeps the original formatting in its history, so the same item can go out as rich text with ↩ or as plain text with ⌥↩. Images and copied files are not text, so they paste as they are.
Questions and answers
Does the formatting come back if I change my mind?
Yes. SupaClip stores the original item with its formatting. Press ↩ instead of ⌥↩ and the same entry pastes as rich text.
Can I make plain text the default?
Not today. Plain text is the ⌥ variant of every paste key, and return alone pastes the item as copied.
Does it clean up links and tables?
It pastes the text of the item as a plain string, so the link text stays but the link itself does not.