App Exclusions in Paste Plain Text

Understand how Paste Plain Text interacts with different apps and how to manage formatting stripping per app.

Paste Plain Text operates system-wide, stripping formatting from clipboard contents regardless of which app you are copying from or pasting into.

System-Wide Operation

When automatic mode is enabled, Paste Plain Text strips formatting from all text copied to the clipboard, no matter the source application. This includes text copied from:

  • Web browsers
  • Email clients
  • Word processors
  • Spreadsheet apps
  • Any other application

Temporarily Preserving Formatting

If you need to paste formatted text into a specific app while automatic mode is active, you can temporarily disable the stripping:

  1. Quit Paste Plain Text using the menu bar icon or Cmd+Q.
  2. Copy and paste your formatted text as needed.
  3. Relaunch Paste Plain Text from your Applications folder.

Alternatively, you can switch to manual mode in Settings by disabling Automatically Clear Formatting. In manual mode, formatting is only stripped when you explicitly choose Paste as Plain Text from the menu bar.

Troubleshooting

Pasted text still has formatting

  1. Make sure Paste Plain Text is running. Check for its icon in the menu bar.
  2. If you are using manual mode, remember to click Paste as Plain Text from the menu bar before pasting.
  3. Confirm that Automatically Clear Formatting is enabled in Settings if you want continuous stripping.