Pure Paste aims to fix the pain of formatted text for good

One of my biggest computer pet peeves is copying and pasting text. Not the actual mechanism of getting Word from one document to another, but the way modern computers insist on trying to be overly helpful and copy not only the text I want, but all the formatting that comes with it, my Email and my documents.

Pure Paste is a neat new menubar app for macOS that aims to fix this: When it's open, it automatically removes any formatting on the text you copy, so you can save every time you copy it. Bar can paste clear, unformatted text. There's an option to clear formatting only when you're asked to pure paste (either by clicking the menubar icon or via a keyboard shortcut).

For those concerned about security concerns, the developer notes that when the app accesses your clipboard, it doesn't store any data — or is even able to connect to the Internet.

Technically, there's already a way to do something similar on the Mac: If you paste with the complicated four-key shortcut of Command-Shift-Option-V instead of the usual Command-V, it will paste and style. will match whatever document you are in. (Entrepreneur users can go deeper into macOS settings and remap "Paste and Match Style" to be Command-V, but that also requires more effort.)

To that end, I'm not entirely sure that pure paste will be highly helpful to someone like me, who is used to completely mashing Command-Shift-Option-V every time I do something. Paste it into my muscle memory. (I've gotten used to pasting text into Alfred and then copying from there, which clears up any formatting as well).

Still, Pure Paste is a free, simple application that does what it says on the can, and may make your day-to-day workflow a little less aggravating.