Local-First Software for Clipboard Apps: 7 Ideals Applied
Local-first software keeps the primary copy of your data on your own device; servers, if there are any, hold secondary copies that help your devices sync. The term comes from the 2019 Ink & Switch essay by Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg and Mark McGranaghan. For a clipboard app, it means your history is stored and fully usable on your PC with no account and no connection, and any sync is an optional layer on top. It doesn't mean "never syncs": working across your devices is one of the essay's seven ideals.
The seven ideals, applied to a clipboard app
The essay sets out seven ideals for local-first software. Here's what each one asks of a clipboard manager:
| Ideal (Ink & Switch) | What the essay means | What it asks of a clipboard app |
|---|---|---|
| 1. No spinners: your work at your fingertips | Reads and writes go to local disk, never waiting on a server | Capturing, searching and pasting never wait for the network |
| 2. Your work is not trapped on one device | Data syncs across all the devices you work on | Optional sync of history between your PCs |
| 3. The network is optional | Full use offline; sync happens later | Everything works with Wi-Fi off |
| 4. Seamless collaboration with your colleagues | Real-time collaboration as good as cloud apps | Mostly irrelevant; shared snippet sets are the closest case |
| 5. The Long Now | Data stays accessible even after the company is gone | History you can read and back up without the vendor's servers |
| 6. Security and privacy by default | No central database of everyone's data; servers hold only end-to-end encrypted copies | No vendor-side store of users' copies; any sync is end-to-end encrypted |
| 7. You retain ultimate ownership and control | You can copy, modify and delete your data freely | You can find, back up and delete your history yourself |
Two of these matter more for a clipboard than for most apps. Copies routinely include passwords, tokens and personal messages, so ideal 6 is the main reason to care. And the clipboard is used constantly, so ideal 1 (no waiting) is close to a requirement.
Local-first, local-only and cloud-first
These get mixed up, and the difference matters when you compare tools:
| Model | Primary copy of your history | Sync | Works offline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud-first | The vendor's server; your device holds a cache | Built in, often required, usually tied to an account | Partly or not at all |
| Local-first | Your device | Optional; servers hold secondary, ideally encrypted, copies | Yes |
| Local-only | Your device | None | Yes |
A local-only app meets most of the ideals but deliberately gives up ideal 2. That's a reasonable product choice, and for some users a privacy feature, but it's a narrower thing than local-first. Why some clipboard apps will never sync covers the case for staying local-only.
How common Windows clipboard tools line up
These descriptions come from each tool's own documentation (see Sources).
- Windows clipboard history (Win+V). History lives on the PC, and Clipboard history across your devices is a separate, optional switch that syncs text through your Microsoft or work account. Unpinned items are cleared at every restart, so long-term retention (ideal 5) isn't its goal. Microsoft doesn't document how synced items are encrypted.
- Ditto. Free and open source. Its site lists no login, no cloud and no telemetry, and it stores history in a local SQLite database. It can also keep several computers' clipboards in sync, with data encrypted when sent over the network. Local storage plus optional device-to-device sync covers more of the ideals than most tools.
- CopyQ. Free and open source. History is stored in its configuration directory, unencrypted unless you turn on encryption, and its documentation says it doesn't send anything over the network. Local-only.
- Edge Drop. Made by the team behind this site. Free and open source (Apache 2.0). History lives in
%APPDATA%\Edge-Dropon your PC, works offline, needs no account, has no telemetry and no sync, so it's local-only. The history index is encrypted with Windows DPAPI, while captured images and the full text of long clips are stored as ordinary files in the same folder. There's no export feature, but the files stay on your disk. Where Edge Drop stores data on disk lists every file.
None of these runs a vendor database of your copies by default, which is the part of local-first that matters most for privacy. Local-only clipboard managers for Windows 11 compares more options.
What local-first doesn't require
- No network at all. Update checks, opening a link in your browser or downloading a release don't break local-first, as long as clipboard data doesn't leave the device without your choice. Edge Drop's GitHub build, for instance, checks GitHub for updates (you can set Automatic updates to Off), and the Microsoft Store build makes no update requests of its own.
- Open source. The two are separate properties. Open source does help ideal 5: if the developer stops working on an app, you can keep running or building the last release. What happens to your clips if a solo app goes quiet? looks at that risk.
- Never syncing. Sync is part of the ideal. The local-first requirement is that the device copy stays primary and that servers can't read what they store.
A checklist for building a local-first clipboard app
If you're building a clipboard tool, these choices put the ideals into practice:
- Store history in the user's profile on disk and make every feature work from that store with no account.
- Keep the capture and paste path free of network calls. Nothing a user copies should wait on, or travel to, a server.
- Document every network request and let users turn automatic ones, such as update checks, off.
- Honour Windows' exclusion formats. Skip copies flagged with
ExcludeClipboardContentFromMonitorProcessing, or withCanIncludeInClipboardHistoryset to zero, so password-manager copies stay out of history. - Encrypt at rest with OS-managed keys such as DPAPI, and state exactly which files are covered. Does a local clipboard app need encryption at rest? discusses the trade-offs.
- Use storage users can find and back up, and add an export if you can.
- If you add sync, make it opt-in and end-to-end encrypted, so the server only ever holds ciphertext. What would end-to-end encrypted clipboard sync require? works through the design.
How to check whether a clipboard app is local-first
- Turn off Wi-Fi and use the app for a few minutes. Capture, search and paste should all still work.
- Watch its network traffic while you copy. Nothing should be sent when you copy something. How to audit whether a clipboard app talks to the network shows how.
- Find its storage folder. If you can't tell where your history lives, you don't control it.
- Read the sign-up flow. An app that requires an account before it records anything is cloud-first, whatever its marketing says.
For a shorter checklist aimed at choosing a tool rather than building one, see what does local-first mean for clipboard apps?.
FAQ
Is local-first the same as offline?
No. Working offline is one of seven ideals. Local-first also covers ownership of your data, long-term access, privacy and optional sync between your devices.
Is Windows clipboard history local-first?
Its local part is: history is kept on your PC and works without a connection. Sync goes through your Microsoft or work account when you turn it on, and unpinned history is cleared at every restart.
Can a local-first clipboard app sync?
Yes. The essay treats sync across your devices as an ideal. What makes it local-first is that the copy on your device is primary and the app is fully usable without the server.
Related reading
- What Does Local-First Mean for a Clipboard Manager?
- Clipboard Managers Without Cloud Sync: Why It's a Feature
- How to Check If a Windows App Has Telemetry
- Open-Source Clipboard Licenses: Apache vs GPL vs MIT
Sources
- Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud (Ink & Switch) — definition, authors and the seven ideals.
- Using the clipboard (Microsoft Support) — clipboard history, restart behaviour and optional sync.
- Clipboard formats (Microsoft Learn) — formats that keep a copy out of clipboard history and cloud sync.
- Ditto website — no login, no cloud, no telemetry.
- Ditto project page (SourceForge) — SQLite storage and encrypted sync between computers.
- CopyQ security (CopyQ docs) — storage, encryption option and no network use.
- CryptProtectData (Microsoft Learn) — the Windows DPAPI encryption function.
- Edge Drop (GitHub) — source code and licence.
Deepender Yadav created Edge Drop and builds and tests it, from the edge-hover shelf to each release. A B.Tech Computer Science Engineering student, Deepender writes the Edge Drop guides, comparisons and developer posts, and checks product details against the app's source code.
GitHub · LinkedInCopy. Stack. Drop.
Transform your clipboard into an interactive edge shelf. Stack, pin, and drag assets into any app with zero friction.
Download for Windows Get from Microsoft Store
How to Install Guide · First 10 Minutes Guide · Drag & Drop Guide · Edge Drop vs Win+V · Support
Free · Lightweight · Privacy First