Getting Started & Permissions
User GuideGetting Started & Permissions

Getting Started & Permissions

System requirements, installation, and macOS Accessibility permissions architecture.

What is OpenClip?

OpenClip is a lightweight, ultra-responsive macOS floating popup utility written in Swift 6. It activates automatically whenever you highlight text across any macOS application, presenting an action HUD for instant search, calculation, dictionary lookup, text transformation, AI writing tools, and extensible custom scripts.

OpenClip runs as a native background menu bar accessory (LSUIElement), meaning it stays unobtrusively hidden from the macOS Dock and Command-Tab application switcher while remaining instantly accessible anywhere on your Mac.

System Requirements

macOS Sonoma (14.0+)

Required

Built using modern AppKit & SwiftUI with complete Swift 6 strict concurrency guarantees.

Universal Binary

Universal

Native execution on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) and Intel x86_64 architectures.

macOS Permissions Architecture

To detect text selections and position the floating popup HUD next to your cursor without interrupting your workflow, OpenClip requests Accessibility access.

PermissionPurposeImplementation & Safety
Accessibility (AX)Detect mouse releases, keyboard selection gestures (⌘A, ⇧+Arrows), and read selected text coordinates.Verified via AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions. Monitored by a background 0.5s polling loop to detect permission changes immediately without restarting the app.
Input MonitoringGlobal mouse drag and click tracking.Handled under macOS Accessibility privileges via NSEvent.addGlobalMonitorForEvents. No separate Input Monitoring entitlement is required.
Screen RecordingNone required.OpenClip never records screen pixels or framebuffers. All popup positioning relies strictly on window and cursor geometry.
Automation (AppleScript)DOM selection retrieval in browsers.Allows querying tab text in Safari, Chrome, Arc, and Firefox via JXA/AppleScript without touching the clipboard.

Zero Clipboard Pollution

When Accessibility APIs cannot extract text directly (such as in legacy terminal emulators or Electron apps), OpenClip captures a snapshot of your system clipboard, executes a synthetic copy, reads the text, and immediately restores your original clipboard with org.nspasteboard.TransientType and AutoGeneratedType tags so 3rd-party clipboard managers (Paste, Maccy, Alfred) never record intermediate selections.

Accessibility Troubleshooting

If macOS fails to recognize granted permissions after an app update, you can reset the TCC database entry using the terminal command below:

Terminal
# Reset OpenClip accessibility permission in macOS TCC database
tccutil reset Accessibility com.openclip.OpenClip