killall pboard on Mac: What It Does and When to Use It
killall pboard terminates your Mac's pasteboard service. macOS normally starts it again, which can help when copying and pasting are stuck across several apps.
Treat it as a clipboard reset. Save or recover anything important before running it. It will not restore an overwritten copy, repair a document's formatting, or clear every clipboard manager's saved history.
If you arrived here with a command ready to paste into Terminal, first check that the symptom actually points to the system clipboard.
When the command is worth trying
Use a disposable test to separate a system failure from an app failure.
Open TextEdit, create a document, type clipboard-check, and try copying and pasting it onto a new line. Then try the same action with the app's Edit menu.
| Result | What to check next |
|---|---|
| Copy and paste fail in several local apps | A pasteboard restart may help |
| TextEdit works; one website does not | Editing focus, website behavior, or the browser |
| Menus work; keyboard shortcuts fail | Shortcut conflicts or keyboard settings |
| Local paste works; iPhone-to-Mac paste fails | Universal Clipboard setup |
| Paste works, but fonts look wrong | The destination's paste-format command |
| You want yesterday's copied text | Previously recorded history or the source |
Apple explains that apps decide what they can paste and when the command is available in its Mac copy-and-paste guide. A dimmed Paste command in one field does not establish that pboard is broken.
For the full diagnosis, use Copy and Paste Not Working on Mac. This article focuses on what the Terminal command changes and how to judge the result.
Before running it, protect the current copy
If you used ⌘X, go back to the source and try Undo. If that restores the text, save the document. If the original still exists because you used Copy, leave it available until pasting works again.
You can also check a clipboard history tool that was already recording. Finding the material there gives you another place to retrieve it after the reset. Follow our overwritten clipboard recovery guide if the earlier copy is already missing.
Do not copy a troubleshooting command over the only remaining copy of your paragraph. Open Terminal and type the short command yourself if necessary.
Run killall pboard
Open Terminal from Applications → Utilities, enter the following, and press Return:
killall pboard
The name has two parts:
killallselects processes by name and sends a signal.pboardis the process providing pasteboard services.
The installed macOS killall(1) manual says the default signal is TERM and matching is limited to processes owned by the caller unless broader privileges are used. The pboard(8) manual identifies the pasteboard server and says users should not launch it manually.
You do not normally need sudo for this troubleshooting step. Do not add it merely because an internet recipe does. You also do not need to start with killall -9 pboard; the ordinary command is the smaller intervention.
If the command succeeds, it generally produces no output. An empty Terminal line is not proof the original problem was fixed. Test a fresh copy next.
Check whether it worked
Return to TextEdit. Type a new harmless line, copy it, and paste it below. Use a newly created value so you can distinguish a working clipboard from an old value displayed somewhere else.
If you prefer a Terminal check, these commands deliberately replace the current clipboard with test text:
printf '%s' 'clipboard-check' | pbcopy
pbpaste
The expected output is clipboard-check. Because this example omits a trailing newline, your shell prompt may appear immediately after it.
pbcopy writes standard input to the pasteboard. pbpaste reads supported data from it. The installed pbcopy(1) manual documents both. This checks a plain-text round trip; it does not prove that images, rich text, cross-device transfer, or every application now work.
If Terminal says no matching processes were found
That message means killall did not find a process matching its selection. It does not mean you should escalate immediately to an administrator command or delete system files.
Try a fresh local copy again. If copying still fails across apps, save your work and restart the Mac. If it works in TextEdit, return to the affected application instead of repeatedly resetting the service.
Does killall pboard clear clipboard history?
It resets the service behind the active clipboard. It is not a reliable deletion command for separately stored history.
| Store | Is this command its deletion control? |
|---|---|
| Current system pasteboard | Treat the reset as losing its active contents |
| Spotlight Clipboard history | No; use Spotlight's history controls |
| Pastea, Raycast, or another history database | No; use that application's deletion controls |
| Text already pasted into a document or message | No; edit or delete it at the destination |
If privacy is your goal, use our guide to clearing the Mac clipboard and history. A clipboard reset and a history cleanup solve different problems.
What if the problem returns?
A reset is useful evidence, not a permanent explanation.
If copying works immediately afterward and fails again later, note the apps involved and what was copied. Test with non-sensitive examples. Save work, then quit optional clipboard, keyboard, or automation utilities one at a time and repeat the test. Change one variable so you can identify a pattern.
If only cross-device paste fails, check Apple's Universal Clipboard requirements, including the Apple Account, proximity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Handoff. A working local text copy points you toward a different layer.
Once copy and paste work again, a history tool can help you recover ordinary copies you overwrite later. Pastea adds that searchable history; it does not replace the macOS pasteboard service or promise to repair a stuck one.
Primary references
On your Mac, run man killall, man pboard, and man pbcopy to inspect the system manuals. These pages were checked for this article on October 18, 2026. The examples above describe expected behavior; we did not reset a reader's clipboard or run a recovery benchmark.
