MacPasteNext

Created by Joe Mild. Because in 2026, he was still absolutely sick of macOS being too stupid for basic Linux copy & paste. Sometimes you just have to fix this shit yourself.

What is this?

MacPasteNext is a lightweight, background macOS application that finally brings the beloved Linux X11-style middle-click copy-paste functionality to your Mac. In addition, it packs an elegant system-wide microphone mute toggle mapped directly to your mouse buttons, complete with colorized visual feedback in your menu bar.

MacPasteNext. Because middle-click just makes sense.

Features

• 🖱 Auto-Copy on Selection: Highlight text in any app, and it is instantly copied to your clipboard.
• 🖱 Middle-Click Paste: Click your middle mouse button to paste your clipboard instantaneously.
• 🎤 Global Microphone Mute: Toggle your system microphone on/off using a side mouse button. It remembers your previous volume level and displays a distinct Red/Green indicator in the macOS Menu Bar.
• 🌍 Localization: Fluent in both English and German.
• 🐞 Debug Friendly: Fully integrated real-time logging console visible directly in the app.

Screenshots

Dark Mode	Light Mode

These screenshots can be refreshed using the GitHub Actions workflow:

• Capture macOS Screenshots (.github/workflows/screenshots.yml)
• The workflow creates real macOS screenshots and commits updates to:
  • assets/screenshot-dark.png
  • assets/screenshot-light.png

Installation

Currently you must build the app from source:

1. Clone this repository.

2. Open terminal in the cloned directory.

3. Build a release app bundle:

   chmod +x scripts/build-release.sh
   ./scripts/build-release.sh

4. Self-sign locally (optional for quick local tests):

   codesign --force --deep --sign - dist/MacPasteNext.app

5. Move dist/MacPasteNext.app to your /Applications/ folder and launch it.

Release pipeline (No Apple Developer subscription)

This project supports a GitHub Actions macOS ARM release pipeline using one persistent self-signed certificate. This keeps app identity stable across releases for sideloading:

• Constant bundle id: io.github.joemild.macpastenext
• Always sign with the same certificate identity
• Run smoke checks on each release build

Workflow file:

• .github/workflows/release.yml

Scripts:

• scripts/build-release.sh
• scripts/sign-selfsigned.sh
• scripts/smoke-test-macos.sh

One-time self-signed certificate setup

Run these steps on a macOS machine once, then reuse the same cert for all future releases.

1. Create a self-signed code-signing certificate in Keychain Access

   • Keychain Access -> Certificate Assistant -> Create a Certificate
   • Name example: MacPasteNext Self Signed
   • Identity Type: Self Signed Root
   • Certificate Type: Code Signing

2. Export as .p12 (with password).

3. Convert for GitHub secret:

   base64 -i MacPasteNext-selfsigned.p12 | pbcopy

4. Add GitHub repository secrets:

   • MAC_CERT_P12_BASE64: base64 of the exported .p12
   • MAC_CERT_P12_PASSWORD: password used during export
   • MAC_CERT_IDENTITY: exact certificate name (for example MacPasteNext Self Signed)

Required variables

Set these in GitHub (Settings -> Secrets and variables -> Actions -> New repository secret):

• MAC_CERT_P12_BASE64
• MAC_CERT_P12_PASSWORD
• MAC_CERT_IDENTITY

Local equivalents for manual test runs:

export MAC_CERT_P12_BASE64="<base64_of_p12>"
export MAC_CERT_P12_PASSWORD="<your_p12_password>"
export MAC_CERT_IDENTITY="MacPasteNext Self Signed"

Triggering releases

• Beta tags use: v1.0.0-beta.1, v1.0.0-beta.2, ...
• Final/stable tags use: v1.0.0, v1.0.1, ...
• The release workflow publishes beta tags as GitHub pre-releases and final tags as normal releases.
• Each release builds, signs, runs smoke tests, uploads MacPasteNext-macos-arm64.zip, and then triggers screenshot refresh automation.

Local preflight checks before CI

These checks are safe on Linux and help catch obvious issues before pushing:

# Shell syntax checks
bash -n scripts/build-release.sh
bash -n scripts/sign-selfsigned.sh
bash -n scripts/smoke-test-macos.sh
bash -n scripts/validate-release-inputs.sh

# Changelog extraction sanity check (replace tag as needed)
./scripts/extract-changelog.sh v1.0.0-beta.1 CHANGELOG.md /tmp/release-notes.md allow-missing

Full app build/sign/smoke requires macOS because it depends on Apple tooling (sips, iconutil, codesign, security, spctl).

Permissions Required

Because MacPasteNext needs to monitor your global mouse clicks and natively simulate keypresses (Cmd+C / Cmd+V) to trick macOS into pasting text, the operating system requires you to grant it Accessibility permissions. If things get stuck with the permissions cache (as macOS often does), there's a handy tccutil reset button built directly into the UI to reset it and prompt again.

Sideload notes (self-signed builds)

Without Apple notarization, first launch may be blocked by Gatekeeper. Typical user flow:

1. Right-click app -> Open.
2. Confirm Open in the warning dialog.

If app is quarantined after download, advanced users can remove quarantine manually:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MacPasteNext.app

Contributing

Community contributions to deal with macOS quirks are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for our contribution guidelines.

Support and Reporting

• Usage/setup questions: GitHub Discussions
• Bug reports: GitHub Issues
• Security vulnerabilities: GitHub Security Advisory (private)
• Code of Conduct concerns: Maintainer profile

Project Health

• Roadmap: ROADMAP.md
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
• Code of Conduct: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• Security Policy: SECURITY.md
• Privacy Policy: PRIVACY.md

License

Provided under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.