[1] Coprinopsis was split out of the genus Coprinus based on molecular data.

[2][3] The species Coprinopsis cinerea is a model organism for mushroom-forming basidiomycota, and its genome has recently been sequenced completely.

[4] The genus was described in 1881 by the Finnish mycologist Petter Adolf Karsten with the type species Coprinopsis friesii and C. phaeospora placed within it, both having formerly been classified as Coprinus species.

[5] Karsten stopped using the Coprinopsis genus name by 1889 and in 1887 it was considered a subgenus of Coprinus by Narcisse Théophile Patouillard.

Coprinopsis was considered to be an advantageous name to use for the genus due to using the same root word as Coprinus.