Why I built a clipboard manager that never leaves your device

Vitālijs Pankovs — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:47:14 +0000

Every clipboard manager I tried wanted an account, a cloud sync, or both. I copy passwords, card numbers, and work notes dozens of times a day, and I did not want any of that leaving my machine just to get a searchable history.

So I built one that does not try.

It is a Chrome extension (Manifest V3). It watches copy and cut events on pages you have allowed, keeps a local, searchable history, and lets you pin items, tag them, and click to copy back. That is the whole feature set. No merge tool, no floating widget, no account screen.

The part I am most proud of is what it refuses to store. Password fields, card numbers (checked with a Luhn test, not just a pattern match), one-time codes, and anything in a field labeled like a PIN or CVV are never captured, even with full page access granted. You can also pause capture or exclude a domain entirely.

Everything lives in chrome.storage.local. There is no account, no server, no sync, and the extension ships with a content security policy that blocks outbound network calls entirely, so this is not a claim you have to trust, it is enforced at build time and checked by an automated test on every build.

Export and import are plain JSON, so your history is yours to move or back up whenever you want.

The extension is currently in Chrome Web Store review. I will share the listing here once it is live. Until then, happy to answer questions about the capture logic, the sensitive-field detection, or why I skipped cloud sync on purpose.

DEV Community: Vitālijs Pankovs

Why I built a clipboard manager that never leaves your device