How to paste without formatting on Mac

To paste text using the surrounding document's style, try Option-Shift-Command-V. On Mac, this is the standard shortcut for Paste and Match Style. You can also look for that command in the destination app's Edit menu.

There are two different problems behind "paste without formatting." Sometimes you want a quotation to match the paragraph around it. Sometimes you need plain text for a form, a message, or a file. The first asks the destination app to apply its style. The second removes the formatting before the text gets there.

Use Paste and Match Style for a single paste

1. Select and copy the source text with Command-C.
2. Click where the text belongs in the destination document.
3. Choose Edit > Paste and Match Style, or press Option-Shift-Command-V.

Apple describes this command as matching the surrounding font, colour, size, and other styling. Each app decides which paste operations it supports, so check the app's menu if the shortcut does nothing or the command is unavailable. See Apple's copy and paste instructions.

Try the command at the end of an ordinary paragraph when diagnosing a styling problem. Pasting into a heading, a list item, or text that is already bold can produce exactly that surrounding style. If the destination is wrong, matching it will still look wrong.

Use TextEdit when you need plain text

TextEdit provides a built-in way to remove rich formatting before copying again. Use a new scratch document so you do not accidentally change a document you want to preserve.

1. Open TextEdit and choose File > New.
2. Choose Format > Make Plain Text. If the menu offers Make Rich Text instead, the document is already plain text.
3. Paste the source text into that document.
4. Select the text, copy it, and paste it into your destination.

Converting a rich text document removes its styles and formatting. Apple documents the conversion, and the option to make plain text the default for new documents, in its TextEdit guide.

Use this route when you want to inspect the actual text before submitting it. A web selection may contain a navigation label or caption you did not intend to copy. Once the decoration is gone, those extra words are easier to spot and remove.

Reuse plain text from Poffle's clipboard

If the same snippets come up repeatedly, a scratch document adds another stop to every paste. Poffle's Clipboard stores captured text entries as plain text and puts plain text back on the clipboard when you select them. The original font or rich text styling is not restored with that entry.

1. With Poffle's clipboard capture running, copy the wording you need.
2. Place the cursor in your destination, then open Clipboard in Poffle.
3. Search for a distinctive word from the snippet.
4. Select the text entry to paste it into your previous app.
5. Star a snippet you expect to reuse and retrieve it from Favourites next time.

Direct paste requires Accessibility access for Poffle (on macOS 27: Device Control and Data Access). Without it, the selected entry is copied and you can return to your app and paste with Command-V. This affects the final paste action; it does not add rich formatting back to a plain text entry.

Use a text entry for this workflow. Poffle also handles links, images, and files as their own content types. Selecting a saved image is not a request to extract the words inside that image.

Plain text still contains your characters

Removing formatting does not rewrite the content. Line breaks, repeated spaces, punctuation, and words copied from a page can remain. A curly quotation mark is a character, not a font setting. A paragraph split halfway through a sentence may need an edit after the paste.

Consider a delivery note copied from a PDF. You may want the recipient's name, the delivery date, and two instructions. Paste without formatting first, then check whether the PDF's visual line breaks became real line breaks. Fix those separately. Changing the paste command again will not necessarily repair the text structure.

The destination can also apply formatting of its own. For example, it may recognise a URL and turn it into a link. Plain text on the clipboard does not disable the receiving app's editing features.

Choose the method for the work

For a one-off paste into a styled document, start with Paste and Match Style. For text you want to inspect and clean, use a plain TextEdit document. For snippets you copy, search, and reuse throughout the day, a plain text history removes the need to keep returning to the original source.

You can download Poffle for that history workflow. For the built-in macOS history and Poffle's capture controls, see how to find clipboard history on Mac.