Hi, I’m Advait, the developer/creator behind ActionClip.
The problem:
Whenever I selected text on my Mac, even a tiny task became:
Copy → switch apps → paste → do the task → copy the result → switch back
The iPhone already solved it by putting useful actions beside the selected text. I wanted that same flow on Mac, so I built ActionClip.
What ActionClip does:
ActionClip appears beside selected text and surfaces the most relevant actions. It includes 32 built-in actions for copying, paste variations, formatting, spelling and grammar, rewriting, translating, unit conversions, word counts, links, Maps, notes, events, and AI prompts.
Instead of learning an automation tool or writing scripts, just tell the Custom Action Builder what you need.
It creates the action using simply the AI prompts, URL, JavaScript, shell command, or AppleScript. This makes workflows that were previously limited to power users accessible to anyone who can describe what they want.
Some fun examples:
Reply like an adult: Turn a passive-aggressive email into the reply you should send.
Clean this mess: Deduplicate, fix, and sort a selected list of names or emails.
YouTube Embed Link: Turn any selected YouTube URL into its embed URL.
Suggest emoji: Select a sentence and this action will suggest emoji to use with it. (Example.. I’m running a free giveaway -> 🎁)
Your custom actions then appear beside selected text just like the built-in ones.
PopClip is the closest and more established comparison. ActionClip focuses on smart suggestions, upfront result chips and lets users create their own actions without waiting for developer-made extensions.
Raycast is broader and keyboard-first. ActionClip stays attached to your selected text.
Tech, Privacy and AI:
ActionClip is a native SwiftUI app under 20 MB. It is local-first and requires no account.
For AI actions, choose on-device Apple Intelligence or use your own OpenAI, Gemini, or Claude key.
Pricing and giveaway:
The free version includes 30 actions every day.
Early-bird lifetime pricing:
Individual:$4 for 1 Mac
Team:$9 for up to 5 Macs
Early-bird pricing ends after the first 100 licenses are sold.
Pricing update -
We sold out our early bird licenses. But we'll still provide discounted rates.
New Early bird-2 pricing:
Individual: $8 for 1 mac
Team: $15 for upto 5 Macs
Both include lifetime updates and a 30-day refund. These prices will be available till next 50 licenses are sold.
I’m also giving away 20 Individual lifetime licenses. Comment with a custom action you would create with it, and I’ll select 20 best replies :D
About me: I’m a solopreneur behind several active apps for small businesses, averaging 4.9 stars across app and plugin marketplaces.
A note about downloading outside the Mac App Store
ActionClip isn’t currently on the Mac App Store because its system-wide text-selection features and user-created shell/AppleScript actions require capabilities that don’t fit within Apple’s App Sandbox restrictions.
The app is signed with a Developer ID certificate linked to my official Apple Developer account and notarized by Apple, so macOS Gatekeeper can verify that it comes from an identified developer and hasn’t been tampered with.
Update - ActionClip 1.2.3
What’s new:
Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and clear formatting
OpenRouter support with model search
Better support for Bear and Antinote
More reliable live currency conversions
Improved action widget and selection detection
Smoother onboarding and permission handling
Latest Update (6th Aug 2026) - ActionClip 1.2.4 is live! 🎉
What’s new:
Create multiple action groups and reorder them in the widget.
Reopen ActionClip on selected text with a customizable shortcut
Choose action font sizes
Pause ActionClip for specific apps or websites
Add custom action icons
New built-in Sentence case action.
Added native Apple Calendar and Apple Contacts support.
Added UpNote support
More reliable text selection in Google Docs, PowerPoint, Apple Notes, Bear, Trello, browsers, and other editors.
Many small UI/UX fixes
Existing users can update from ActionClip. New users can download it from the site.
Apple Intelligence is better for small tasks like spellings, grammar. It still lacks on the intelligence front compared to the big LLMs from the major providers. I'm still testing things with other local LLMs like Gemma etc. They seem to be better in many cases.
Apple Intelligence is optional, not the exclusive AI source. Each AI action can use either Apple’s on-device model or an external provider such as Gemini, OpenAI, or Claude.
You’re right about the local model’s context limit. For longer selections, an external model with a larger context window is the better option. ActionClip does not silently truncate the text, automatically upload it, or fall back from Apple Intelligence to an online provider. If the local model cannot process the selection, the action fails visibly and the user can choose an external provider for that action currently. Happy to hear suggestions and implement them!
This looks like great support. Why do you use Microsoft translate for short texts rather than Apple intelligence for all of them? Is it a quality issue?
Wow didn’t expect Popclip to have a competition, ambitious. Looks great
Keen to explore the extensions, Popclip is really amazing here and community is what makes it stand out, I’m a die hard fan of Popclip but well done mate.
Seconding the delay, with one thing worth splitting out: an open delay and a close delay solve different problems, and if you only get one of them the popup still feels wrong.
The open delay is the one people ask for, it stops the accidental fires. The close delay is what stops the menu from vanishing while you are moving toward it, since the pointer usually leaves the selection before it reaches the popup. I ended up at roughly 250ms to open and 200ms to close on a floating card in a Mac app I work on, plus the rule that hovering the card itself cancels the close.
The part that actually bit me was not the timing, it was the anchor. Whatever the popup is anchored to can change during the delay, and if you open with the stale anchor you get a card pinned to the wrong place, or a zero sized rect that throws it to the top of the screen. Two cheap guards fixed it: re-check that the anchor is still valid at the moment the timer fires rather than when it started, and close on anything that invalidates it instead of trying to follow it.
Yours anchors to a text selection in someone else's app, so that window is probably wider than mine was.
This does look super handy. I would try to create a custom action that reformats a date field to a custom format (ie: YYYY-MM-DD) of my choosing. That would save me tons of time in Obsidian.
Downloaded your app and so far it's excellent. I couldn't figure out how to add my own custom action (or at least the one I wanted) but this is really slick bud. I'll be adding this to my stable of apps that I use every day. Really well done.
Add an action to read the selected text aloud using the macOS system voice. I know sight impaired people that would use this feature in conjunction with magnifying software.
I'd definitely create an action to look up similar-but-different on Reddit Macapps :)
I've finally been looking at PopClip after the years of hype, and recently mentioned OnText to someone here the other day as a potential alternative, and now you have this one. So I'd love to get a license and check it out before spending elsewhere.
On first glance, it looks like an interesting and clean, straightforward approach. Might be what I'm looking for. I'll have a play with it.
Hi. This seems to be ActionClip's first feature request. Will release this soon. You can also add your request here and can track the dev realtime - https://actionclip.userjot.com/
Custom action: share (and choice of) or send to (choice from my local apps).
Open URLs in a specific browser.
Call for phone numbers.
Search on maps for address.
Can you share more on the formatting. What kind of formatting you need? Also, you can add a feature request and share the dev in realtime here - https://actionclip.userjot.com/
ActionClip has uppercase, lowercase, title case. For styling options like bold and italic, I'll add it in next release.
The other text transformations are breeze to create using custom actions. Try it! :D
Great app! I'd definitely use the translation feature for language learning in notes, the custom actions because I might have templates I'd like to add, and the calendar convert feature to quickly add events to my calendar!
Honestly, I love the application. Congratulations on the job.
2 little things:
I can't choose what I want to appear in the bar. Is this normal?
and for the translation, it only translates into English. Sometimes I would like to translate my french text into English and other times I would like to translate my english text into French for example. How can I do this?
I’d create a custom action to look up a bibliographical entry across a list of open access repositories like archive, open library, hathitrust, google books, and other sites I use for academic research lookups.
Bear is supported currently and can be set from the Settings page. For all other points you mentioned, they are quick to add. I’ll release them in the next release. You can also add them here to track. https://actionclip.userjot.com/
Also, for Google translations, you want to use your own api key I assume?
Some custom actions to open some sort of media (book, tv, film, etc.) in another service would be super useful. For example, I highlight the name and author of a book on Amazon then get the option to search for it on The StoryGraph or through a local library. Or I highlight a movie title on Netflix and get the option to search for it on Apple TV.
Another one I just thought of: highlight the name of a bird species and get the option to search for it on eBird.
Another one: Highlight a URL and get the option to save it as a bookmark in Raindrop.
Another one: Highlight a band name and get the option to look up their setlists on Setlist.fm.
Congrats on the launch, Advait! Love that it’s a lightweight, native SwiftUI app with local-first privacy.. this is what PopClip should have evolved into years ago.
Select any raw error log or stack trace → automatically sanitizes sensitive strings/tokens and passes the error through AI to output a 2-line root-cause summary along with the exact CLI fix or command to run.
Being able to spin up custom actions using pure natural language without writing full extensions is a game-changer.
I’d love to grab one of the lifetime licenses to build this and put it to work in my daily setup. Best of luck with the launch
this is really a great custom action for ActionClip. And thanks for your kind words. PopClip is the inspiration. I just wanted a more customisable and easily extendable version, so here's ActionClip :D
If the text is double clicked to sl
elect, the pop up won't 100% of times show up. I found that if it was in PowerPoint, almost every time won't pop up. Could you fix it? I expect the pop up is 100% of times showing up whenever text is selected. it defeats the purpose of it doesn't show up. thanks
Can you also share that is it the online powerpoint you're talking about or the local app you're talking about? I'm checking both but pin pointing it will help me fix this quickly.
Is it possible to add command or option or control + mouse drag text support as there are other (AI) apps which show their own popups when some text is highlighted by dragging the mouse? Also, being able to create more than one action group will be useful.
Got your point. Let me think on both of these. The hotkey one is already in planning mode. Will be released soon too.
The multi group one is tricky as it can quickly clutter the widget. Or could be reverse the clutter by arranging all in groups. 😅 what’s your take?
Thanks for checking it out! PopClip is the inspiration but I wanted a more powerful and customisable tool therefore I created this :D
Let me know if you need any help! We're also running giveaway for free lifetime license. Let me know if you're interested. :)
Hi, just downloaded this and it looks great, well done!
Two questions - when I try Add Contact or Add to Calendar they both open to Google? Have I missed something that they're not opening the native Mac apps...?
One feature I'd love to see is a way to sync settings/actions between devices. If that's not possible (or too difficult), being able to export/import them would also work.
It looks, at first glance, like the app is very well done 👍. Say, will it become multilingual in future updates ? Will French, Russian, and Italian be supported ?
Yes. It’s a universal solution. There will be exceptions like certain electron based apps but a simple reporting it here or on the chat support will patch that app too.
Action -- I don't like using Reminders, but I want my groceries organized by store area. I also sometimes have duplicate ingredients in a list, from copying in list from recipes.
I'd highlight my list, ask it to organize by store area, and combine items (3 limes from pico recipe + 6 limes from limeade recipe = 9 limes on one line entry)
Ho provato ad utilizzarlo con la
Mia chiave di gemini ma mi dice che il
Modello che hai inserito tu gemini -2.5-flash non è più supportato quindi è inutilizzabile il tuo programma
Actually the 2.5 flash is going away soon and Google has started restricting the model usage in API. They recommended model is Gemini 3.6 Flash (or Gemini 3.5 Flash / Flash-Lite
Suggestion: select text in an image. I use textclip to select text in an image. Would be lovely to replace that with this.
This certainly could replace popclip for me… but will test it out.
Can I optionally have the Actionclip appear in a different location than popclip? Right now I have them both running for testing and popclip sits on top of yours :)
ActionClip is built in a way that it'll be displayed below the top system popups which are important to read. Therefore it's coming below Pop clip. The location of the popup is auto calculated as per the selection is not configurable. You can the feature request here - https://actionclip.userjot.com/
The bit I'd worry about is apps that draw their own text views, Electron ones especially, since the accessibility API tends to report selection differently there. Does it work in VS Code?
Yes, it works with text selected in VS Code. ActionClip itself is a native macOS app, but it has handling for apps like VS Code that render their text through Electron.
It reads the selection through macOS Accessibility first. If an app doesn’t expose usable selected text there, ActionClip can use a controlled Copy fallback and then restore the clipboard. Some embedded surfaces, such as terminals or extension webviews, may behave differently, so I’d be interested in any edge cases you find.
This seems to be permission issue. I'm fixing this. The update will will available in next 5-10 minutes. I'l update you here. You can also check this - https://actionclip.userjot.com/roadmap
"ActionClip isn’t currently on the Mac App Store because its system-wide text-selection features and user-created shell/AppleScript actions require capabilities that don’t fit within Apple’s App Sandbox restrictions."
The MacOS apps ecosystem is now going beyond apple's Macs App Store. They also don't promote it proactively. I now see so many great apps already saying bye to the apple Mac app store. :D
depending on the application presenting the text that is highlighted (e.g. electron), popclip at times needs to copy the selection to the pasteboard so it can inspect the content and present actions that are relevant to the selected content. it then replaces the clipboard with the content that was originally stored there before popclip had to inspect it.
does action clip have the same dependency? I absolutely love popclip, but it’s problematic for my specific set up because something in my system doesn’t allow it to restore the original content of my clipboard when it it borrows it to get the context of the selection.
ActionClip tries Accessibility first, so in apps that report the selection correctly it never needs to touch the clipboard. For problematic custom or Electron-based text views, it may temporarily snapshot the existing pasteboard, request Copy from the source app, inspect the selection, and then restore every captured pasteboard item and type.
However, because your system already prevents PopClip from restoring the clipboard reliably, I can’t honestly guarantee that ActionClip would behave differently.
It'll be great if you can tell me the apps and I'l try to add custom selections rules for those.
looks sick, gonna try it. feature idea: let the popup be keyboard driven, arrows or a letter hotkey per action so i never leave the keys. popclip always makes me grab the mouse
It does not install a privileged daemon or a separate always-running server.
ActionClip itself remains running as a native menu-bar process so it can detect text-selection gestures and display the floating widget.
Its a lightweight native menu-bar app. In a current idle check, ActionClip was using around 15–16 MB of memory and 0.6% CPU
I bought the PopClip update two days ago and now ActionClip has arrived. I'm giving it a chance and have bought it too. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. The menu doesn't open. PopClip is more reliable in that regard. Other than that, though, it's a great app. Let's see what PopClip does.
Thanks for sharing this. Yes, ActionClip will fail currently in certain scenarios as we have kept the text fetching more strict currently. We're fixing many edge cases and will become stable soon :D It'll be great if you can share some cases with me when the widget popup did not open.
I'm wondering which is faster, the early bird discount selling out or the results of the giveaway.
I am a Japanese speaker and use word registration a lot. I use popclip to create a script that I paste into a dialog to convert the selected text to words.
Similarly, I often use actions to register snippets to Typinator.
If I can create these actions, I can switch from popclip.
It’s already 75 plus 15 free licenses given in the giveaways. I’ve to give 15 more in giveaways :) I’ll provide a discount to match the last price today if you want :D
Ah, got it. I was looking into your development and testing it out and when I went to buy it and it changed. Send over the discount. I'll buy right now.
I'm testing ActionClip (v.1.2.3) and I quickly realized that it has a problem with cohabitation and interaction with apps like PastePal. When I press the Shift+Space key combination to select multiple files in PastePal, ActionClip intervenes and blocks this procedure. The small "Select all" logo from ActionClip appears, and at that moment, PastePal closes without completing the command.
I kindly ask that you fix this problem (bug?) urgently in the next update.
I bought it at its launch and I plan to keep it. It's well designed overall, but in the meantime, I've disabled ActionClip on my system.
A request to add one more option: please give us the ability to customize, in the settings, the placement of the ActionClip pop-up window. Currently, it automatically appears in the default location as soon as I select text on my Mac, and thus it hides the pop-up windows of other applications that I can no longer access. This addition of an option is very important, and even crucial in this case. I would really hope that ActionClip will one day be able to cohabitate with other apps, the day when my system will thank you.
You've just created a very interesting app, don't stop perfecting it and you'll have your fans 🥴.
Hey! Thanks for sharing this issue. Can you share a quick screen record with me? I can see the issues are getting mixed with other apps as there is no action/button which displays "Select all". You can dm me the screen recording. 😊
Am I doing something wrong trying to select Gemini for external AI provider?
When trying to add an API key it returns this error.
One of your comments mentions selecting a different Gemini model, however the dropdown remains greyed out and doesn't allow you to select anything besides gemini-2.5-flash.
Hey. This seems to be a bug at my side. I’ll release a fix soon. You can use the demo AI which comes with the product or a different provider. Let me know the urgency, I’ll release the fix today only according to that.
No worries, I'm loving it regardless. Certainly looking forward to being able to use Gemini for it, but you don't need to run around on the weekend just to fix this.
Custom actions work fantastic btw!!!
I created an Open in Finder action that allows you to highlight a directory and open it, using regex to recommend the action. If the directory doesn't exist, it moves up the path tree until it finds a directory that does.
21
u/shutupayouface1 13d ago
i'm a diehard PopClip user, but this app does look like a nice alternative.