Collective for Mac retains your clipboard history, saves you time
Collective (US$1.99) is a clipboard history utility for Mac. It keeps track of everything you copy to your Mac's clipboard, which in turn allows you to paste different items without having to go back and forth copying and pasting over and over again.
Since I've not used a clipboard utility app before, I know this frustration all too well! So when I got the opportunity to try out Collective, I jumped at it.
To use Collective, copy items as you normally would to the clipboard, whether it be an image, file or text. When you come to paste an item, hit Shift + ⌘ + V instead of the usual ⌘ + V, the Collective window will appear with a history of all you've copied to the clipboard. Either click and drag what you want to paste or select it and press ⌘ + V. If you're pasting multiple items the click and drag technique will be the easiest and quickest.
Of course, with copying so many things to the clipboard, Collective will soon become quite full, but Collective has some nifty features to help you keep on top of your clipboard. You can live search the Collective clipboard, filter items by the application they were copied from and Quick Look items directly from the clipboard. Collective also gives a thumbnail preview of non-text items. Furthermore, Collective copies text formatting but also lets you paste as plain text.
Finally, Collective has Retina display support, is restart resistant (meaning if you restart your Mac all clipboard items will be saved) and supports apps running in full screen mode. Collective won't duplicate items you happen to copy more than once and you can blacklist Collective copying from certain apps, like password managers.
Having spent the last few days using Collective, I'm really pleased with how it works. Aside from getting used to the new paste keyboard shortcut, Collective has been a pleasure to use and has improved my workflow.
You can get Collective from the Mac App Store now, or why not try out some of these other trusted clipboard utilities recommended by the TUAW team: Flycut or Clyppan.
