Yoink alternative: Shelfy vs Yoink

Shelfy vs Yoink at a glance

Shelfy and Yoink compared, November 4, 2026

Feature	Shelfy	Yoink
Price	$9.99, once	$8.99, once
Try before you buy	Live demo on this site	28-day trial (website version)
Where to buy	shelfydock.com	Mac App Store, its website, Setapp
Needs	macOS 14 Sonoma	macOS 10.13 High Sierra
Where the shelf appears	Always beside the Dock	At the screen edge as you drag
Newest screenshots and downloads, already on a strip	Yes	—No
Search the shelf with one shortcut	Yes	—No
Compress, convert, remove location, copy text, zip	Yes	—No
Clipboard history	Screenshots only	Yes
iPhone and iPad app	—No	Separate app
Languages	English	8

Yoink facts are from its website and its Mac App Store listing, checked November 4, 2026. Its shortcut shows and hides the shelf and can recall recent items; we didn’t find a search on its site, so it’s marked “no”.

What Yoink is, and why people like it

Yoink, by Eternal Storms Software, is one of the best-known shelf apps on the Mac and has been around for years. Start dragging a file and a small shelf fades in at the edge of your screen. Drop the file there, go find where it’s supposed to go, and drag it out again. Your hands are free while you look.

It’s thoughtfully made. You can choose whether it appears right away, only near the edge, or at the pointer. Dragging out behaves like Finder, with ⌥ to copy and ⌘ to move. It can keep a history of what you copy (password managers are left out), and with its separate iPhone and iPad app it can hand files between devices. At $8.99, once, it’s also good value.

Where Yoink is better

• A shelf wherever you drag. Yoink comes to you, at the edge you’re heading for or right at the pointer. Shelfy stays beside the Dock.
• Older Macs. It runs on macOS 10.13 High Sierra and later. Shelfy needs macOS 14 Sonoma.
• iPhone and iPad. A companion app hands files between your devices.
• Clipboard history. Yoink can keep recent things you copied, not just screenshots.
• A real trial and more ways to buy. 28 days free from its website, plus the Mac App Store and Setapp.
• Eight languages. Shelfy is English only.

Where Shelfy is better

• Your newest screenshot is already there. The other side of the Dock shows your ten newest screenshots and downloads, including screenshots you only copied to the clipboard. Nothing to drag in first.
• One place, always. The shelf sits beside the Dock, lines up with it to the pixel and hides when it hides. You always know where your files are.
• Search with ⇧⌘Space. One shortcut opens the shelf, screenshots and downloads in a searchable panel, with Quick Look on Space.
• Fix a file before you send it. Right-click to compress a photo, convert HEIC to JPEG, remove its location, copy the text out of an image or zip a folder. Each makes a new file; the original stays as it was.
• ⌃⌥V pastes your newest screenshot straight into a chat or email, and leaves your clipboard alone.

Which should you pick?

Ask yourself one question: do you want the shelf to come to you, or to always be in one place?

If you mostly move files between windows and like a shelf that pops up the moment you start dragging, Yoink does that beautifully, and it’s the only choice of the two on an older Mac or if you want it on your iPhone too.

If what you keep doing is hunting for the screenshot you just took, the file you just downloaded, or the three documents you’re working on today, Shelfy keeps all of them beside the Dock without you doing anything. That’s the job it was made for.

Both are one-time purchases. Try Yoink’s 28-day trial, try Shelfy’s demo above, and keep the one that matches how you work.