I built a clipboard manager in Rust because every other one made me pick two of three

Pick a clipboard manager and you usually end up choosing two of three: cross-platform, lightweight, or private.

Maccy is fast and private, but macOS only. Paste is gorgeous and syncs across Apple devices, but it's paid and Apple-only. Ditto is free and rock solid, but Windows only and the UI hasn't changed since the Bush administration. CopyQ runs everywhere and is endlessly scriptable, but the learning curve is real and it doesn't feel like 2026.

I wanted all three, plus the power-user features the rest leave out. So I built Ortu, and v2.0.0 just shipped.

• Repo: https://github.com/abhijith-p-subash/ortu
• Site + downloads: https://ortu.abhijithpsubash.com

What Ortu is

A local-first clipboard manager for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Native binary, keyboard-driven, zero telemetry. Everything lives in a local SQLite database. No account, no cloud, MIT licensed.

It's built with Tauri + Rust on the backend and SvelteKit on the frontend, which is the whole reason it stays small and quiet in the background instead of parking a Chromium instance in your RAM.

What's actually in v2.0.0

v1 was text-first and minimal. v2 is a real clipboard manager:

Multi-format capture. Text, images, and files with thumbnails, not just plain strings.

Paste stack. This is the feature I missed most everywhere else. Queue several clips, then paste them one by one, in order, into any app with a global hotkey. Most managers only hand you back the last thing you copied.

Encryption at rest. Ortu detects keys and tokens, masks them on sight, and encrypts them with AES-256-GCM. They stay hidden until you ask. If you copy secrets all day (and as a dev, you do), your clipboard history stops being a liability.

Smart auto-grouping. A rule-based classifier sorts every clip into URLs, code, JSON, shell commands, secrets, and file paths automatically. Your history never turns into a junk drawer.

FTS5 full-text search. SQLite FTS5 with fuzzy ranking, so search stays instant across tens of thousands of clips instead of degrading into a slow substring filter.

Snippets and transforms. Reusable snippets with variables, plus "Copy as" — JSON, Base64, URL-encode, case conversion, slugify, and more.

Customizable shortcuts. Rebind every global hotkey in-app, with one-click restore to defaults.

Flexible retention. Clear on reboot, keep forever, or set age/count limits. Pinned and grouped items are always kept.

Plus themes (light/dark/system), signed auto-updates straight from GitHub Releases, and the native/lightweight footprint that comes free with Tauri.

Keyboard-first by default

Every core action has a global shortcut that works over any app:

All rebindable in Settings.

Why Tauri + Rust instead of Electron

A clipboard manager runs all day, every day, in the background. It is the worst possible place to pay the Electron tax.

Electron ships a full Chromium runtime with every app, which means a large install and high idle memory for what is, fundamentally, a list and a search box. Tauri uses the OS's native webview instead and pushes the heavy lifting into Rust. The result is a small binary, low idle memory, and a clipboard pipeline that's fast because it isn't fighting a browser engine.

Rust also matters for the privacy story. Clipboard data is sensitive by definition, and a memory-safe backend handling encryption and local storage is a much easier thing to trust than a pile of npm dependencies.

How it compares

Honest version, including where the others win:

Where the others genuinely win: Paste has polished iCloud sync across Apple devices, which Ortu doesn't do (local-first by design). Maccy is the most minimal thing on the list if all you want is history and nothing else. CopyQ goes deeper on scripting and custom automation than Ortu does. Ditto has 20+ years of Windows battle-testing behind it.

Ortu's lane is specific: the only one in that table that is cross-platform and native and private and free, with paste stack, encryption, and auto-grouping in the box without configuration.

Try it

Downloads for all three platforms are on the latest release. The builds aren't code-signed yet, so:

• macOS: if Gatekeeper blocks the .dmg, run the xattr commands from the download section.
• Windows: if SmartScreen warns, click More info → Run anyway.
• Linux: download the .AppImage, chmod +x, run.

It's MIT licensed, so you can read every line before you trust it with your clipboard.

If you give it a week, the "how did I work without this" moment usually lands around day three. And if it earns a spot in your setup, a star on GitHub genuinely helps it reach the next person.

Issues, PRs, and feature requests welcome. Tell me what your current clipboard manager won't do — that's usually where the next feature comes from.