The reported Cu(ii) metal-organic cage (Cu3L2, 1) can be a highly active reusable catalyst to homogeneously catalyze the A3-coupling reaction in CHCl3 and can be heterogeneously recovered by simply adding 1,4-dioxane via formation of the insoluble metal-organic framework (Cu3L2(1,4-dioxane)1.5, 2).