Free, open-source clipboard manager, text expander, and PDF + image toolbox for Mac in one native app. Merge, split, compress, watermark, protect, and OCR PDFs. PDF to Word, HEIC to JPG, resize, compress, crop, and remove image backgrounds. Everything the PDF and image websites do, without uploading your files - zero network access.
DeskPulse is a free alternative to Paste, TextExpander, Permute, and the iLovePDF / iLoveIMG web tools. It bundles the desk utilities people usually pay for or upload files to websites for: clipboard history, text snippets, a document and file converter, a full PDF toolbox (merge, split, compress, watermark, protect, OCR), and image tools including background removal. The app is under 3 MB, there is no telemetry, and nothing ever touches the network.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Clipboard History | Every copy is captured: text, images, and files. Search it, pin favorites so they never expire, click to copy back, or copy as plain text to strip formatting. Anything a password manager marks confidential is never recorded. |
| Text Snippets | Type ;addr anywhere and it becomes your full address. Triggers expand in every app, with {date}, {time}, and {clipboard} placeholders filled at expansion time. |
| File Converter | Images: HEIC, PNG, JPG, TIFF, WebP, GIF, BMP between each other or to PDF, with quality and resize controls, plus combine several images into one PDF. Audio: MP3 sources to M4A, WAV, AIFF, or FLAC. Documents: DOCX, DOC, RTF, TXT, HTML, ODT, and Markdown between each other or to PDF. PDFs: to Word, RTF, TXT, HTML, or page images. Originals are always kept and existing files are never overwritten. |
| PDF Tools | Merge PDFs, split by page or range, reorder/rotate/delete pages in a visual editor, compress, watermark, add page numbers, password protect and unlock, and OCR: scanned PDFs and photos to text, Word, or a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer. |
| Image Tools | Preview-first editing: every tool shows a live preview of the selected image. Resize by pixels or percent, compress for email (shows how much smaller the result is), crop by dragging with aspect presets, watermarks previewed as you adjust them, 2x-4x enlargement, rotate and flip. All batch, all local. |
| Background removal | An interactive editor, not just a button (macOS 14+): DeskPulse finds the subjects, then you click which ones to keep and fix the edges with Restore and Erase brushes over a live transparency preview. Batch auto mode too. |
| Menu bar popover | Your last eight clips one click away, next to the clock. DeskPulse keeps working when the window is closed. |
Conversion runs on the sips, afconvert, and textutil tools plus the PDFKit framework that ship inside macOS, so DeskPulse adds no codecs, no bundled ffmpeg or LibreOffice, and no dependencies. One honest limit: document conversion carries text and formatting, not embedded images or exact page layout. For pixel-perfect fidelity on complex documents you still want the original app.
| DeskPulse | Paste | TextExpander | Permute | Maccy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $30/yr | $40/yr | $15 | Free |
| Open source | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Clipboard history + search | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Pinned favorites | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Image and file clips | Yes | Yes | No | No | Partial |
| Text expansion snippets | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Image conversion (HEIC to JPG) | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Image resize and compression | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Document conversion (PDF to Word, DOCX to PDF) | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Audio conversion | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Video conversion | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| iCloud sync across devices | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Telemetry / network calls | None | Yes | Yes | Some | None |
Each of those apps is good at its single job, and the sync features are real advantages if you live on multiple devices. DeskPulse exists because most people need 80% of all three, on one Mac, without three subscriptions.
| DeskPulse | iLovePDF | iLoveIMG | Smallpdf | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free tier + $7/mo | Free tier + $7/mo | $12/mo |
| Files stay on your Mac | Yes | Uploaded to their servers | Uploaded | Uploaded |
| Works offline | Yes | No | No | No |
| Account required | Never | For most features | For most features | Yes |
| File size / task limits | None | On free tier | On free tier | On free tier |
| Open source | Yes | No | No | No |
The web tools are convenient and cover a few things DeskPulse does not (e-signing, PDF repair, layout-perfect PDF to Word on complex documents, AI upscaling). For everything else, DeskPulse does the same job on your own machine: nothing to upload, no queue, no size limits, and it works on a plane.
Build from source (needs Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install):
git clone https://github.com/panwardev687/deskpulse.git
cd deskpulse
./build.sh
open DeskPulse.appThe build is a single swiftc invocation and takes a few seconds. No Xcode project, no package manager, no dependencies.
To start DeskPulse at login, flip the toggle in Settings inside the app.
macOS only remembers the last thing you copied. DeskPulse fixes that: it records everything you copy (text, images, and files) into a searchable history. Click the clipboard icon in the menu bar for your recent clips, or open the app to search hundreds of items and pin the ones you reuse.
Copied text often drags fonts and colors along with it. In DeskPulse, right-click any text clip and choose "Copy as Plain Text", then paste normally. You get the characters only, no styling. This works on anything in your history, not just the most recent copy.
Drop HEIC files onto DeskPulse's File Converter pane, pick JPG, choose a quality, and click Convert. Conversion happens locally through macOS's own imaging engine, so photos are never uploaded anywhere. Originals stay untouched; converted copies appear next to them. PNG, TIFF, and HEIC output work the same way.
macOS has built-in text replacement, but it is unreliable in many apps and hard to manage. DeskPulse's snippets expand in any app: define a trigger like ;sig, type it anywhere, and the expansion replaces it instantly. Placeholders like {date} and {clipboard} are filled at the moment of expansion.
Drop the PDF onto DeskPulse's File Converter, pick "Word (DOCX)", and click Convert. DeskPulse extracts the text with Apple's PDF engine and writes a clean DOCX, all locally, so nothing is uploaded to a website. It converts text, not layout: scanned image-only PDFs and heavy visual layouts need a full PDF editor instead.
Drop a DOCX, DOC, RTF, TXT, HTML, ODT, or Markdown file onto the File Converter and choose PDF. DeskPulse reads the document with macOS's own text engine and paginates it onto US Letter pages. Text and formatting carry over; images embedded in the document do not. Batch conversion works: drop a whole folder's worth at once.
Open DeskPulse's Image Tools pane, choose Compress, and drop your images in. Pick JPEG or HEIC, set the quality, and optionally cap the longest side (2048 px is plenty for email). DeskPulse shows exactly how much smaller each file got, and your originals stay untouched.
Open DeskPulse's PDF Tools pane, choose Merge, drop your PDFs in, drag them into order, and click Merge. The combined PDF is written next to the first file. Unlike the PDF websites, nothing leaves your Mac, there is no file size limit, and it works offline. Split, compress, watermark, and page numbering work the same way.
Use the OCR tool in DeskPulse's PDF Tools pane. Drop in a scanned PDF or a photo of a document and get plain text, a Word file, or a searchable PDF where an invisible text layer is added over the scan. Recognition runs on-device with Apple's Vision engine, so sensitive documents are never uploaded.
On macOS 14 or newer, open DeskPulse's Image Tools, pick Remove Background, and drop in your photos. Apple's on-device segmentation cuts out the subject (people, pets, products) and writes a PNG with a transparent background. It runs in batch and never sends your photos anywhere.
No. Password managers mark sensitive copies with a standard "concealed" flag (org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType), and DeskPulse skips anything carrying it. History is stored locally in ~/Library/Application Support/DeskPulse, never synced, never transmitted. You can also delete any item or clear unpinned history at any time.
For clipboard history, pinned favorites, plain-text pasting, and everyday snippets: yes. Paste has a prettier visual browser and iCloud sync; TextExpander has team sharing and fill-in forms. If you need those, they are worth their price. If you need the core features on one Mac, DeskPulse does them for free and you can read every line of its source.
- Accessibility - only needed for text snippets (watching for triggers and typing expansions). Clipboard history and file conversion work without it. macOS asks on first use: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable DeskPulse.
DeskPulse makes zero network connections. No analytics, no telemetry, no update phone-home. The only outbound links are the GitHub buttons in Settings.
DeskPulseApp/ <- the app (start here)
Main.swift app shell + sidebar navigation
StatusBar.swift menu bar icon + quick-clips popover
ClipboardModel.swift clipboard capture engine + persistence
ClipboardView.swift history pane with search and pins
SnippetsModel.swift text expansion engine (event tap)
SnippetsView.swift snippet editor pane
ConvertView.swift file converter (sips / afconvert)
DocConvert.swift document + PDF conversion (textutil / PDFKit / CoreText)
PDFOps.swift PDF engine: merge, split, compress, protect, OCR
PDFToolsView.swift PDF toolbox pane
PDFOrganizeView.swift page reorder/rotate/delete editor
ImageOps.swift crop, watermark, enlarge, background removal
ImageToolsView.swift image tools pane
Settings.swift preferences and launch-at-login
Shared.swift common helpers
build.sh <- builds DeskPulse.app
scripts/make_icon.swift regenerates the app icon programmatically
Issues and PRs welcome. The codebase is intentionally simple: one view file per pane, models are plain ObservableObjects, helpers live in Shared.swift. Build with ./build.sh, no other tooling required.
- MacPulse - system monitor and cleaner: CPU temperature, System Data cleanup, duplicate finder, app uninstaller, disk space map.
If DeskPulse replaced a subscription for you, consider sponsoring development.