Copy and Paste Not Working on Mac? 9 Fixes

When ⌘C suddenly does nothing — or ⌘V pastes something ancient — the problem is almost never "your Mac is broken." It's one hung process or one misbehaving app. Work through these fixes in order; most people are done by step 3.

1. Rule out the app first

Try copying in a different app (Notes, TextEdit). If it works there, the problem is the original app, not your clipboard — quit and reopen that app. Web apps in particular (Google Docs, Figma) intercept copy events and can fail while the system clipboard is fine.

2. Check what's actually on the clipboard

Finder → Edit → Show Clipboard shows the current item. If your copy landed there but won't paste, the receiving app is blocking paste (some banking sites do this deliberately). If the clipboard shows the old item, the copy never happened — keep going.

3. Restart the pasteboard server

macOS runs the clipboard through a background process called pboard. When it hangs, copy/paste dies system-wide. Two ways to restart it:

• Activity Monitor: search pboard, select it, click the ✕ button, choose Force Quit. It respawns instantly.
• Terminal: run killall pboard.

This fixes the majority of "clipboard completely dead" cases. Anything copied before the restart is lost — unless a clipboard manager was keeping history (more on that below).

4. Also restart WindowServer's little helper: cfprefsd — actually, don't

You'll see advice online to kill half a dozen system processes. Skip it. If pboard didn't fix it, a plain restart of the Mac (fix 5) is faster and safer than surgery on system daemons.

5. Restart the Mac

Unglamorous, effective. A restart clears the pasteboard server, frees memory pressure (a common trigger), and resets Universal Clipboard state.

6. Suspect Universal Clipboard

If your Mac pastes things you copied on your iPhone (or vice versa) at odd times, Handoff may be interfering. Test by disabling it: System Settings → General → AirDrop & Handoff → Allow Handoff off. Re-enable after testing if you use the feature.

7. Check third-party clipboard tools

Clipboard managers, text expanders, and launcher apps all watch the pasteboard. A buggy or outdated one can wedge it. Quit them one by one and retest. (A well-behaved manager reads the clipboard without ever blocking it — this is a bug in a specific app, not an indictment of the category.)

8. Test in a new user account

Create a temporary user in System Settings and test copy/paste there. If it works, something in your account's login items or preferences is the culprit; if it fails there too, think hardware/OS — run a macOS update.

9. Update macOS

Pasteboard bugs do ship and do get patched. System Settings → General → Software Update.

The recurring-problem insurance policy

If a flaky clipboard keeps eating things you copied, a clipboard manager turns a catastrophe into a shrug: Vee keeps a local history of everything you copy, so even when an app or the system clipboard misbehaves, your last 20+ items are one ⌘⇧V away. (New to the idea? See how clipboard history works on a Mac.)

Related guides

• How to Clear the Clipboard on a Mac (and Why You Might Want To)
• How to Copy and Paste on a Mac: The Complete Guide
• How to See Your Clipboard History on a Mac (2026 Guide)