Pastea MCP

Local MCP server for Pastea. Give Claude, Cursor, Codex, VS Code and other AI tools access to your Mac's clipboard history — without anything leaving your Mac.

Your assistant can search what you copied, pull a clip into context (including the text Pastea reads inside your screenshots), and put a clip back on the clipboard for you to paste.

Pastea runs the MCP server itself, on 127.0.0.1 only. This package is the thin, dependency-free bridge that AI apps launch: it finds Pastea, asks it for access once — you click Allow in Pastea — and relays messages over stdio.

Install

Claude Desktop

One click from Pastea: open Settings → MCP & AI Tools, turn on Enable MCP, and click Claude Desktop. Claude Desktop opens with the Pastea extension ready to install.

Or find Pastea in Claude Desktop under Settings → Extensions → Browse extensions, or download pastea-mcp-<version>.mcpb from the latest release and double-click it.

The first time Claude uses it, Pastea asks you to allow the connection.

Every other AI app

Use add-mcp to connect Pastea to all your installed AI apps at once:

npx add-mcp @pastea/mcp

Or connect each app yourself:

Claude Code

claude mcp add pastea -- npx -y @pastea/mcp

Codex

codex mcp add pastea -- npx -y @pastea/mcp

Cursor

VS Code

Anything else that runs stdio MCP servers:

{ "mcpServers": { "pastea": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@pastea/mcp"] } } }

The first time an app uses Pastea, Pastea shows "Allow <app> to use your clipboard history?" — click Allow and the tools appear.

Connect from Pastea

Every app above can also be connected from inside Pastea — Settings → MCP & AI Tools, click the app's chip. Cursor and VS Code open an install prompt; Claude Code, Windsurf and Codex get the exact command or config to paste, already carrying an access token, so no pairing prompt is needed.

Pastea's MCP & AI Tools settings page

What your assistant can do

Tool	What it does
`search_clips`	Search your clipboard history and lists — text, links, file names, and text recognized in screenshots.
`get_clip`	Read one clip in full, with a thumbnail for pictures.
`list_collections`	List your history and the lists you made, with counts.
`copy_clip`	Put a clip back on the system clipboard, exactly as copied. You paste it yourself with ⌘V.
`pastea_status`	Says whether Pastea is reachable and connected, and what to do if not.

An AI tool can never delete a clip, never pastes into another app, and never sees items Pastea conceals (from password managers).

How pairing works

The bridge ships with no credentials. On first use it asks Pastea for access and Pastea shows "Allow Claude Desktop to use your clipboard history?" (or Cursor, Codex, …). Click Allow and the tools appear a moment later; click Don't Allow and nothing is granted — the assistant gets a pastea_status tool that explains the situation.

Connections are listed in Pastea → Settings → MCP & AI Tools → Connected AI Tools, where you can Revoke each one. Pastea then asks again only if you ask the assistant to reconnect.

Requirements

macOS 15 or later
Pastea 1.3+ with Pastea Pro, and Enable MCP turned on in Settings → MCP & AI Tools
For npx installs: Node.js 20+ (Claude Desktop needs nothing — it ships its own)

Privacy Policy

Pastea MCP runs locally on your Mac.

It connects only to Pastea on 127.0.0.1 and to nothing else. It makes no network requests to Nexo Labs or any third party, and carries no analytics or telemetry.
It moves clipboard data only between Pastea and the AI app that runs it, and only after you clicked Allow in Pastea. What that AI app does with clips it reads is governed by that app's own privacy policy.
It stores one thing: the access token Pastea issued when you clicked Allow, in ~/Library/Application Support/Pastea/MCP Bridge/tokens.json, readable by your user account only. Revoking the connection in Pastea invalidates it immediately; uninstalling Pastea removes the file.
Concealed clips are never available to it, and it cannot delete anything.

Full policy — what data Pastea processes, how it is stored, sharing, retention, and contact: https://pastea.app/privacy.

Troubleshooting

"Pastea isn't running, or its MCP endpoint is turned off." Open Pastea and turn on Enable MCP in Settings → MCP & AI Tools, then ask the assistant to call pastea_status.

"Pastea Pro is required." MCP access is a Pro feature. Subscribe in Pastea's Settings, then call pastea_status.

"Pastea is asking the user to allow this connection." Look for the Pastea window — it may be behind the AI app — and click Allow.

The tools vanished. The connection was revoked in Pastea, or Pastea was reset. Ask the assistant to call pastea_status to pair again.

Tools don't show up after connecting. Fully quit and reopen the AI app so it relaunches the bridge.

Changed Pastea's port? The bridge reads it from Pastea's preferences on every launch; restart the AI app.

Logs for Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-Pastea.log. The bridge never logs the token.

Development

npm install
npm test            # node --test, no network
npm run build       # tsc → dist/
scripts/pack.sh     # validate + pack → build/pastea-mcp-<version>.mcpb + SHA256SUMS

Run it against a development Pastea by hand:

PASTEA_MCP_URL=http://127.0.0.1:41418/mcp node dist/index.js

then type JSON-RPC lines on stdin (initialize, notifications/initialized, tools/list). Releases are cut by tagging v<version> (matching package.json, manifest.json, server.json and src/version.ts); the workflow packs the bundle and publishes it.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome — see the issue tracker.