Paste

Back up your Paste data and move it to a new Mac

Your Clipboard History and Pinboards live on your own devices, and with sync turned on, in your private iCloud account — never on the Paste Team's servers or any other third party. This article shows you how to back that data up and move it to a new Mac.

Where your data lives

Your Clipboard History and Pinboards are stored on each device. With Paste Settings → General → iCloud sync turned on, the same data also syncs through your private iCloud account, so it stays in step across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Nothing is sent to the Paste Team.

Back up your data

You don't need to manage any files by hand. There are two ways to keep a copy of your data safe:

  • Time Machine. A full-Mac backup includes Paste automatically, so if you already use Time Machine there's nothing extra to set up. Restoring your Mac from a Time Machine backup brings your Clipboard History and Pinboards back with it.

  • iCloud sync. With Paste Settings → General → iCloud sync turned on, your Clipboard History and Pinboards are kept in your private iCloud account, so a copy lives safely beyond any single device.

Move your data to a new Mac

The simplest way to carry your history and Pinboards to a new Mac is iCloud sync:

  • Sign in to iCloud with the same Apple Account on both Macs.

  • Turn on Paste Settings → General → iCloud sync on each Mac.

  • Leave Paste open and your data downloads to the new Mac on its own. The first sync of a large history can take a few minutes — Wi-Fi helps.

You can keep iCloud sync off on one Mac (a work machine, for example) and on elsewhere — the setting is per device.

Things to know

  • On iPhone and iPad, deleting Paste removes its local copy on that device. With iCloud sync on, you can download your data again from iCloud later.

If you need hands-on access to your data or help migrating it, Contact us and let us know how Paste is installed and what you're trying to do. If iCloud sync isn't bringing your data across, see iCloud sync doesn't work.