pngpaste

A macOS command-line utility that saves image data from the clipboard to a file.

Free Open sourcemacOS Command line

Official websitegithub.com

Alternatives

Pasteboard ViewerA macOS developer utility for inspecting data stored on system pasteboards.

About pngpaste

pngpaste writes image data from the macOS clipboard directly to a file, much like pbpaste does for text. It supports PNG, PDF, GIF, TIFF and JPEG input, and chooses the output format from the filename extension, falling back to PNG.

The project documents installation from source or with Homebrew.

Strengths

Saves clipboard image data directly to a named file
Supports several common image formats

Limitations

For macOS

Details

Pricing: FreeFree and open source under the BSD 2-Clause license.
License: BSD-2-Clause
Platforms: macOS, Command line
How it runs: Downloadable app
Best suited for: Mac users who want to save clipboard images from the terminal
Categories: Clipboard managers
Last verified: October 8, 2026
Added: October 8, 2026
Provenance: Selected from the Homebrew formula
Sources: github.com/jcsalterego/pngpaste

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