CLIPBOARD · 5 min read
Tegaro vs Flycut: Mac Clipboard Managers Compared
Flycut cycles plain text clippings inside a classic bezel. Here is how it compares to Tegaro’s modern AppKit clipboard with on-device OCR and visual search.
Tegaro and Flycut are both local-first, zero-cloud clipboard utilities for macOS, but they belong to different generations of Mac software. Flycut is a legacy, open-source clipboard manager based on Jumpcut that uses a center-screen translucent bezel to cycle through plain text snippets only. Tegaro offers a modern native AppKit clipboard experience with on-device Apple Vision OCR to extract and search text inside screenshots, visual image thumbnails, quick 1–9 number paste menus, and integration with display, power, and screenshot tools.
At a Glance: Feature Comparison Matrix
| Capability | Flycut | Tegaro |
|---|---|---|
| Supported Clipboard Types Tegaro supports full multimedia history | Plain text strings only (NSPasteboard.string) | Text, rich text, images, screenshots, files |
| On-Device OCR Text Extraction Extract text from non-copyable images | No | Yes (Apple Vision framework via ⌃⌥T) |
| Visual Image Search Find past screenshots by words inside them | No (cannot display or search images) | Yes (search text recognized inside images) |
| Quick 1–9 Number Paste Menu Paste top clips without opening full UI | No (cycle sequentially through bezel) | Yes (instant 1–9 paste hotkey shortcuts) |
| User Interface Architecture Optimized for macOS Sequoia and Sonoma | Legacy translucent bezel HUD (Jumpcut base) | Modern AppKit dropdown panel & search palette |
| Sensitive App Exclusions Protects credentials and secret tokens | Basic exclusion list | Automatic password manager skipping + blacklist |
| Additional Utility Modules 8 tools unified under one menu bar icon | None (clipboard only) | Displays, Power, Screenshots, Typing, OCR |
| Pricing & Licensing Includes 14-day unrestricted free trial | Free (open source on GitHub) | $29.99/yr or $100 lifetime for all 8 tools |
When to Choose Flycut
Developers and terminal enthusiasts who exclusively copy plain text, prefer vintage translucent HUD bezel overlays invoked with Shift+Command+V, and want a lightweight open-source tool with zero modern UI frills.
When to Choose Tegaro
Mac users who need to copy and search images and screenshots via on-device OCR, paste frequent snippets rapidly with 1–9 number hotkeys, and want clipboard history unified with display controls, power telemetry, and typing tools.
Explore full details on the Tegaro Clipboard module, which runs completely locally on your Mac.
Architecture and Privacy Comparison
Flycut traces its codebase back to Jumpcut (2006) and relies on older Cocoa pasteboard polling mechanisms, filtering clipboard changes strictly for NSString types while ignoring image and rich data representations. Its UI is drawn using custom translucent HUD bezel windows. Tegaro tracks the AppKit pasteboard changeCount on a light timer. When new content arrives, Tegaro reads multi-type representations in memory, passes images asynchronously to the Apple Vision framework (VNRecognizeTextRequest) on-device, and stores metadata in a local SQLite index. Clipboard history stays 100% on-device with no analytics and automatic 1-, 7-, or 30-day retention policies.
Tegaro requires no accounts, no cloud sync, and transmits zero telemetry. All operations execute strictly on your Mac.
How to Switch from Flycut to Tegaro
- Note your customary Flycut bezel activation shortcut (often Shift+Command+V).
- Quit Flycut and disable «Launch on startup» in its preferences.
- Open Tegaro preferences, activate the Clipboard module, and assign your favorite hotkey to the Quick Clipboard menu.
- Copy an image or screenshot and press your hotkey to experience visual thumbnails, 1–9 quick pasting, and on-device OCR search.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Tegaro store images and screenshots like Flycut cannot?
Yes. While Flycut only stores plain text strings, Tegaro captures text, rich formatting, images, and screenshots. Each captured image is rendered with a crisp visual thumbnail in your history.
How does Tegaro’s on-device OCR work with the clipboard?
When you copy an image or take a screenshot, Tegaro runs Apple Vision text recognition locally on your Mac. You can search for any word shown inside that image later, or press ⌃⌥T to grab text directly off your screen.
Is my clipboard data kept private in Tegaro?
Yes. Tegaro is strictly local-first, and clipboard processing never uses the network. It never sends your clips, passwords, or images to external servers or cloud AI models, and automatically ignores password managers.
Replace Multiple Single-Purpose Mac Utilities Today
Tegaro unites Clipboard, Clipboard, Displays, Power telemetry, and Typing correction into one local-first app. One license, zero bloat.