Paster
A macOS desktop app for intelligent clipboard management — table formatting, document conversion, and AI-powered file analysis (images, PDFs, audio, video, webpages) via Google Gemini, with local and cloud (Cloudflare R2) storage.
Overview
Paster is a tray-first macOS app that turns the clipboard into something smarter: paste a table and it reformats to Markdown, Pretty-printed, or HTML on the way in; drop files on it and Google Gemini analyses images, PDFs, audio, video, webpages, and even YouTube links. A native Swift CLI handles clipboard watching and global keyboard shortcuts, so the whole thing feels instant rather than like an Electron app with a spinner.
Architecture
Built as a pnpm monorepo. The Electron main process is the orchestrator — it opens a full Next.js dashboard for settings and clipboard history, and a small Vite/React menubar popup for quick actions, both talking to the main process over a context-isolated IPC bridge. A native Swift CLI does the actual clipboard monitoring, keyboard shortcut handling, and table formatting, spawned as a managed child process with heartbeat monitoring and auto-restart. A self-hosted Convex backend stores clipboard history, conversion records, and file metadata.
Two standalone Electron apps live alongside the main app: Live App, an AI file processor built on Gemini with global hotkeys for capture and media recording, and S3 Manager, a drag-and-drop interface for local S3 storage and Cloudflare R2.
What It Does
Smart table formatting
Paste a table and get it back as Simple, Markdown, Pretty-printed, or HTML — triggered by a global shortcut (Cmd+Shift+V).
AI file processing
Gemini analyses images, PDFs, audio (with timestamps), video (frame extraction), webpages, and YouTube links, triggered by global hotkeys straight from Finder.
Document conversion
DOCX, HTML, and PDF converted to Markdown via an integrated Kash pipeline.
Clipboard history
Every clipboard item stored and browsable through the dashboard, backed by Convex.
Smart cloud storage
Files under 5MB stay local; larger files route automatically to Cloudflare R2, with presigned URLs for transfer.
Chrome extension bridge
A local WebSocket server lets a browser extension hand off tab URLs and page content for processing.
Archived — an exploration into native-feeling desktop AI tooling (Electron + a real Swift CLI, not just JS pretending to be native). Not currently maintained.
Stack
Desktop shell, window management, and the process orchestrator
Main dashboard — settings, clipboard history, file conversion
Lightweight menubar popup
Native macOS CLI — clipboard watching, global shortcuts, table formatting
Self-hosted real-time backend for history and file metadata
Multimodal file analysis across images, PDF, audio, video, and web content
Size-based smart storage routing