Support

How do I let Pasteparrot paste?

1. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar and choose “Settings…”.
2. Find the row “Pasting”. While it says “Not allowed”, press “Allow pasting” beside it. The note under the row says what the permission is for: “macOS lists this permission under Accessibility. Pasteparrot uses it only to press ⌘V.”
3. System Settings opens at Privacy & Security, Accessibility. macOS may also show a message of its own about the permission. It leads to the same place.
4. Turn on the switch beside Pasteparrot. macOS can ask for your password or Touch ID.
5. Go back to Pasteparrot's Settings. The row now says “Allowed”, and the next answer is pasted where your cursor was.
6. To get there by hand: Apple menu, System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility. If Pasteparrot is not in the list, add it with the plus button under the list.
7. Until the permission is given, nothing is lost. The answer is copied and stays in the box, which says “copied. close the box, then press ⌘V to paste”. Escape closes the box, and so does Command-V itself. Then press Command-V in your app. Return in that box opens the permission instead.

How do I change the shortcut?

1. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar and choose “Settings…”.
2. Click the field beside “Shortcut”.
3. Press the new key combination. It is saved at once.
4. Until you record another one, the shortcut is Control-Option-Space. On a Mac where macOS uses that combination itself, as it does with two keyboard layouts, Pasteparrot starts with Option-Shift-Space.
5. If the shortcut you have is one that macOS has come to use, Settings says “macOS holds this shortcut itself. Choose another.” under “Shortcut”. Without a shortcut the box still opens from the menu: its first entry is “Open the box”, and the current shortcut stands beside it.

How do I choose the target language?

1. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar.
2. Open “Target language” and choose one of the 17 languages. Each is listed under its own name.
3. The same choice is in “Settings…”, in the row “Target language”.
4. The top of the box shows the direction, for example “tr → en”: on the left the language the app recognises in what you type, on the right your target. Your choice stays until you change it.
5. At first run the target is English. Only on a Mac whose languages are all English does the first-run window ask you to choose one, because English into English would change nothing.

How do I activate Pasteparrot Pro?

1. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar and choose “Settings…”.
2. In the row “Plan”, press “Get Pro”. Polar's checkout opens in your browser. Choose the monthly or the yearly plan and pay there.
3. Polar gives you a license key after the purchase. Copy it. Later, “Find my key” under the key field opens Polar's customer portal, where the key is kept.
4. Back in Pasteparrot's Settings, paste the key into “License key” and press “Activate”. The empty field shows the shape of a key.
5. The line above the buttons says “checking the key”. Then “Plan” says “Pro”, and a line says “Pro is active on this Mac”.
6. If the line says “no such key”, copy the whole key and paste it again. If it says “the service cannot be reached”, check your connection and try again. If it says “too many tries. wait a moment and try again”, wait a moment.
7. If it says “the key is in use on three Macs. remove one in the portal, then try again”, “Manage subscription” stands beside “Activate” and opens the portal: see the next guide. If it says “the key was not accepted. its subscription may have ended”, look at the subscription in the portal or write to us.

How do I use my key on another Mac, or remove a Mac?

1. One key works on up to three Macs. On another Mac, open Pasteparrot's Settings, paste the same key into “License key” and press “Activate”.
2. The day's allowance, up to 1,000 answers, belongs to the key: all its Macs share it.
3. To take a Mac off the key, open Settings on that Mac, press “Remove from this Mac” and confirm. The key stays valid and one of its three places becomes free.
4. For a Mac you no longer have, open Polar's customer portal: with “Manage subscription” on a Mac where Pro is active, or with “Find my key” on one where it is not. Each Mac is listed there under the name it had when the key was activated on it. Remove it there.
5. Then activate the key on the new Mac as in step 1.

How do I delete my data?

1. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar and choose “Settings…”.
2. Find “Delete my data” at the bottom of the window. The line beside it says what it does: “The service forgets this account's plan.” With a key on this Mac it adds that Pro leaves this Mac and that the key can be entered again.
3. Press “Delete my data”. The app asks “Delete your data on the service?”. Press “Delete my data” again.
4. The line then says “Your data on the service is deleted.” If it says “The data could not be deleted. Try again.”, nothing was deleted: check your connection and try again.
5. What is deleted: the service forgets what it holds about the account's plan and frees this Mac's place on your license key, and the app removes the key from this Mac. Pasteparrot Pro is then off on this Mac.
6. What stays: the account's code on this Mac, today's count until the day is over, and the app's settings. Your subscription is not cancelled. The key stays valid, and you can enter it again.

How do I update?

1. Pasteparrot looks for a new version by itself, about once a day. When there is one, it offers it to you.
2. To look at once, click the parrot mark in the menu bar and choose “Check for updates…”.
3. If the box says “this version is too old”, the service no longer answers the version you have. Command-U in that box (“update”) opens Pasteparrot's page. In Settings the same line stands in the Plan section, with “Update” under it.

What leaves my Mac?

The text you send, and with it: whether you asked for a translation or a prompt, the target language, your Mac's list of preferred languages as a hint, the account's code, the app's version and, with Pasteparrot Pro, your license key. These go to the Pasteparrot service. The service passes the text on to Anthropic, whose model writes the answer. Our service does not store the text or the answer and writes neither into its log. Anthropic handles the text under its own policy. Nothing of what you type is sent before you press Return or Command-Return. The privacy policy lists everything.

Why does Pasteparrot ask for the Accessibility permission?

To paste for you. Pasting means pressing Command-V in the app you are writing in, and macOS lets an app press a key in another app only with this permission. Pasteparrot uses it for that one key press and for nothing else: it does not read your screen, other windows or what you type in other apps. Without the permission everything else works. The answer is then copied, and you press Command-V yourself.

What happens to my clipboard?

Pasteparrot borrows it for a moment. It remembers what the clipboard holds, puts the answer on it, pastes, and about half a second later puts back what was there. If you copy something else in that half second, your newer copy stays. The answer carries a mark that asks clipboard managers to skip it. What the clipboard held is never sent anywhere and never written to a file. Without the Accessibility permission the answer stays on the clipboard for you to paste, and what was there before is not put back.

The answer was not pasted. Where is it?

If the paste found no text field to land in, the answer is not lost. Click the parrot mark in the menu bar, choose “Copy last answer” and paste it where you want it. The app keeps the last answer in its memory until the next answer or until you quit it, and never writes it to a file. This copy is an ordinary one: it stays on your clipboard and carries no mark for clipboard managers.

Which languages can I use?

The target is one of 17 languages: English, Turkish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Simplified). You write in your own language. There is no list to choose it from: the model reads what you wrote, and the top of the box shows the language the app recognises.

What happens at the daily limit?

The free plan gives up to 10 answers a day. After the tenth the box says “today's 10 free answers are used up”, under it the time at which the count renews, and “pro gives 1,000 answers a day. ⌘P opens the plan in settings”. When nothing is left, the box says so as soon as it opens. Two other lines mean that the free plan as a whole has run out for the day: “the free tier is used up for today on this network” and “the free tier is used up for today”. The free plan is also limited for a network and for all free users together. These two lines show the renewal time and offer Pro in the same way. With Pasteparrot Pro the limit is up to 1,000 answers a day for the key, on all its Macs together. Fair use: the day's allowance is also measured by the amount of text, so very long texts use it up sooner. Texts that are typed do not come near it. At the limit the box says “today's pro allowance is used up” and when it renews. That line appears at the thousandth answer, or earlier when a very large amount of text was sent that day.

What do the other lines in the box mean?

“too many in a minute. wait a moment”: more texts came in a minute than the service takes. Wait and send again. “the answer was cut for length. try a shorter text”: the answer reached the longest the model may write. Send the text in parts. “the text is too long”: the line names the limit, and the line under it says how long your text is. Shorten it. “the model declined this text”: the model would not work on it. “the service cannot be reached. try again” and “the answer did not arrive. try again”: check your connection and press Return again. “this version is too old”: see “How do I update?”.

How do I cancel Pasteparrot Pro?

Open Settings and press “Manage subscription”. Polar's customer portal opens in your browser, and you cancel there. On a Mac where Pro is not active, “Find my key” opens the same portal. Pasteparrot Pro stays until the end of the period you have paid for. After that the app is on the free plan, and the Plan section says “the key was not accepted. its subscription may have ended”, with “Manage subscription” and “Remove from this Mac” under it. If the subscription runs again, Pro comes back by itself while the key is still on the Mac. “Remove from this Mac” and “Delete my data” do not cancel the subscription.

Why did a very short text come out wrong?

From one or two words the model has little to go on: it has to work out the language and the meaning at once, and a short word can be taken for a name or for a word of another language. “durum nedir”, for example, can come back as a question about something called durum. Write a whole sentence, and both the language and the meaning are clear. It also helps to have the language you write in among your Mac's preferred languages (System Settings, General, Language & Region), because that list goes along with the text as a hint. And read the answer before you send it: an AI model writes it, and it can be wrong.

Write to the developer

Mail is answered in English and in Turkish.

[email protected]Read the privacy policy