TieTieYou know what’s in there better than anyone.
Passwords, ID numbers, bank details, a message you haven’t sent yet, an internal URL from work. A macOS clipboard manager remembers all of that, which means it holds a whole day of your life. So it should be built the conservative way, and that’s how this one is built.
Four things TieTie doesn’t do.
No uploads
There’s no server. Nothing in your clipboard has a path off this Mac, apart from the backups you export yourself and link previews if you leave them on. Update checks go online too, but they only read a version list and carry nothing of yours. All covered below.
No account
No signup, no login, no email field. Install it and it works, offline included. We don’t know who you are and don’t need to.
No analytics
No event reporting, no crash uploads, no usage data of any kind. We genuinely can’t tell you how many people use any given feature. The one thing TieTie asks the network is whether a newer version exists, and you can turn that off.
No lock-in
Everything sits in your home folder, in a format anything can open. Look at it, move it, open it with something else. It’s yours.
Some things never get saved at all.
Not uploading isn’t enough on its own. Some content shouldn’t be recorded in the first place.
| Guard | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Skip private clips | Password managers like 1Password and Bitwarden mark what they copy as confidential,
using the org.nspasteboard convention that’s shared across macOS apps.
TieTie sees the mark and drops the clip. |
On |
| Hide during screen sharing | Turn this on and the panel stays out of any screen share or recording, so nobody sees your clipboard history. It ships off, because a panel that vanishes mid-call reads like a bug, and demos or remote help need the other side to see it. Flip it on in Privacy settings when you need the cover. | Off |
| Excluded apps | Keep your own list. Anything copied from those apps gets ignored. | Empty |
| Pause capture | ⌘T or the menu bar. While paused the icon looks different, so you won’t forget it’s off. | — |
| Strip tracking params | utm_source, fbclid, gclid and friends get removed before the URL is saved. | On |
| File permissions | Folders are 0700 and files are 0600, so other user accounts on the same machine can’t read your clipboard. | Always |
Four ways data actually leaves.
Saying “100% local” is easy, but the phrase comes with conditions. You can switch off all four, and the app tells you about each one. This page just goes into more detail.
Link previews
Copy a URL and TieTie fetches its title, favicon and preview image. That’s a real network request, so the other server sees your IP.
- Only the URL goes out, nothing else from your clipboard
- But if it’s a single-use link, like a password reset, this request might consume it
- An internal URL tells the receiving server your company’s domain
- It’s on by default. You can turn it off in settings, and the first-run walkthrough asks you about it
Backup files
Export by hand in one click, or let it back up daily on a rotation. New machine, clean install, history cleared by accident. One file brings all of it back.
- The backup sits wherever you put it. TieTie never sends it anywhere
- It holds the full database and every attachment, so a restore brings back your history, categories and pins intact
- ⚠️ The file itself isn’t encrypted, so where you point it matters. Choose a folder that syncs, like Dropbox or iCloud Drive, and that content goes up to the cloud too. Settings mentions this where you pick the folder
- Encrypted backups are on our list. They change the backup format, so not yet
Diagnostics bundle
If something breaks you can export a diagnostics bundle to your desktop to help report it.
- It contains no clipboard content
- It holds the last 24 hours of logs, crash reports, and your settings
- We strip the ID that identifies your machine out of crash reports, so it doesn’t help us fix anything, and keeping it just leaves one more way to track you
- Whether you send it to anyone is up to you. TieTie only packages it
Update checks
TieTie asks now and then whether a newer version is out. That’s a real network request, so just like link previews above, the server on the other end sees your IP.
- What they can see: someone read a version list at some point in time, plus your IP and User-Agent string
- It reads a list. No clipboard content, no usage data, nothing that identifies your machine
- On by default, and you can switch it off under Updates in settings
- Switch it off and TieTie never goes online for updates. Only the Check Now button does, and that’s you pressing it
- Downloading a new version adds one more request, which fetches the installer itself
TieTie asks for one permission.
And it works without it. Pasting just becomes “put it on the clipboard” instead.
Accessibility
It’s used to paste back into the app you came from, which technically means pressing ⌘V on your behalf. macOS files “simulate a keystroke” under Accessibility, so that’s the permission it needs.
Skip it and TieTie still works. Pasting just becomes “put it back on the clipboard” and you press ⌘V yourself.
What it never asks for
- No Full Disk Access
- No Contacts, Calendar or Photos
- No microphone or camera
- No location
- No network access to send your data anywhere. The four things that do go online are all listed above, and you can switch off every one of them
There’s no account, because it doesn’t need one.A decision, not a feature we haven’t built yet
Now you know. Keep it all.
What you keep stays with you · TieTie 1.0 · macOS 15 and up · native on Apple Silicon