How to Paste Without Formatting on a Mac (Every App)

Short answer: press ⌥ ⇧ ⌘ V (Option-Shift-Command-V). Apple calls it Paste and Match Style, and it's also in the Edit menu. It works in Apple's apps and most Mac apps. A few apps use their own shortcut: Google Docs and Word use ⇧ ⌘ V.

Why pasted text keeps its formatting

When you copy from a web page, an email or a document, your Mac puts several versions of the same text on the clipboard: plain text, and usually rich text or HTML with fonts, colors, sizes and links. A normal paste (⌘ V) hands the app the richest version it accepts. Paste and Match Style tells the app to take the words and use the formatting of the spot you're pasting into.

Don't mix it up with Paste Style (⌥ ⌘ V). That one does the opposite: it applies a copied style to text you've selected.

How to paste without formatting on a Mac

1. Copy the text as usual with ⌘ C.
2. Click where you want it to go.
3. Press ⌥ ⇧ ⌘ V, or choose Edit → Paste and Match Style in the menu bar.

The text lands in the font, size and color around it. If nothing happens, the app doesn't use that shortcut. Check its Edit menu for an item called "Paste and Match Style", "Paste without formatting" or "Paste text only", or use the table below.

The shortcut in each app

Google Docs

⇧ ⌘ V is the Docs shortcut for "Paste without formatting". Some people find it doesn't fire in Safari. If that happens, use Edit → Paste without formatting from the menu inside the Docs page, or paste in Chrome. Already pasted? Select the text and press ⌘ \ to clear its formatting.

Microsoft Word

Word for Mac pastes text only with ⇧ ⌘ V. For more control, press ⌃ ⌘ V to open Paste Special and choose Unformatted Text. You can also click the small clipboard icon that appears after a paste and pick Keep Text Only.

Make plain text the default

If you almost never want formatting, you can make a plain ⌘ V do Paste and Match Style in every app that has that menu item:

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard and click Keyboard Shortcuts….
2. Choose App Shortcuts, then click +.
3. Set Application to All Applications.
4. In Menu title, type Paste and Match Style exactly as it appears in the Edit menu.
5. Click the Keyboard shortcut field, press ⌘ V, then click Done.

Two things to know. First, it only affects apps whose Edit menu has an item with that exact name. Word calls its version something else, and web apps like Google Docs have their own menus, so they keep pasting normally. Second, you give up the normal formatted paste in those apps unless you give Paste its own shortcut the same way. Using ⇧ ⌘ V for Paste and Match Style instead of ⌘ V is a gentler version of the same trick.

In Word, go to Word → Settings → Edit and set pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only. In TextEdit, go to TextEdit → Settings → New Document and choose Plain text, so new documents never hold formatting.

Strip formatting in any app

When an app has no plain-text paste at all, clean the clipboard first, then paste normally:

• Terminal: run pbpaste | pbcopy. It reads the clipboard as plain text and puts it back, so the next ⌘ V anywhere is plain.
• TextEdit: paste into a plain-text document (or choose Format → Make Plain Text), copy it again, then paste where you need it.
• Any text box without formatting, like Spotlight or a browser's address bar, works the same way in a pinch.

Clear formatting after you paste

• Google Docs: select the text and press ⌘ \ (Format → Clear formatting).
• Word: select the text and click Clear All Formatting on the Home tab.
• TextEdit: Format → Make Plain Text strips formatting from the whole document.
• Anywhere else: undo with ⌘ Z and paste again with ⌥ ⇧ ⌘ V.

Paste plain text from your clipboard history with Pasta

The shortcuts above only work on the last thing you copied, and they change from app to app. Pasta, a clipboard manager for Mac, keeps everything you copy and gives you one way to paste any of it as plain text:

1. Press ⌘ ⇧ V in any app. Your history slides up.
2. Pick an item with the arrow keys, or start typing to search.
3. Press ⇧ Enter to paste it as plain text. Enter on its own pastes it with its formatting.

Pasta puts the plain text on the clipboard and pastes it for you, so it works the same in Slack, Word, Google Docs or anything else, with no per-app shortcut to remember. You can also select several items (⇧-click or ⌘-click) and press Enter: they paste as plain text, one per line. Handy when you're pulling pieces from different places into one note.

What it doesn't do: Pasta is Mac only (there's no iPhone app), and it doesn't change what a plain ⌘ V does outside its panel. Pasta is free for 7 days, no card needed. After that it's $5 a month or $48 a year for everything: sync across your Macs, smart labels and search by meaning. See pricing or download Pasta for Mac.

More on the clipboard: how to see your clipboard history on a Mac, where the clipboard is on a Mac, and the best clipboard managers for Mac.

FAQ

What is the shortcut to paste without formatting on a Mac?

⌥ ⇧ ⌘ V in most Mac apps. ⇧ ⌘ V in Google Docs and Word.

Why doesn't Option-Shift-Command-V work?

The app you're in doesn't have Paste and Match Style, or uses a different shortcut. Look in its Edit menu, or clean the clipboard with pbpaste | pbcopy in Terminal and paste normally.

Is Paste and Match Style the same as plain text?

Close enough. It drops the copied fonts, sizes and colors and uses the style where you paste. The words and line breaks come through.

How do I paste with formatting on a Mac?

A normal ⌘ V keeps formatting wherever the app supports it.