Clipboard History – Retaining Cut and Copy Records

Three-minute read

Picture this: you’re chugging along, laser-focused on the task at hand, diligently cutting and pasting, when your hands start working faster than your thoughts and you accidentally cut twice in a row before pasting. The color drains from your face as panic overtakes you, realizing you have lost some of your best work with this mishap.

Cutting, copying, and pasting are some of the most fundamental commands within an operating system. Despite these commands’ popularity with users, the clipboard (as we previously knew it) had a significant limitation of holding only one item in its memory at a time. Noticing this issue and the market demand for improvements, Microsoft decided to address it.

First appearing in Windows 10’s October 2018 update, Microsoft introduced the concept of clipboard history, which allows you to see multiple items that have been cut or copied recently. Currently, Windows 10 has a cloud-based clipboard that retains a history of the most recent 25 items you have cut or copied since the previous computer reboot, supporting text, HTML, and images smaller than 4MB. For now, items larger than 4MB will not be stored in the history, but as an added feature, you can pin frequently used items. This comes in handy if you find yourself repeatedly using many of the same figures or phrases for your projects since, while clipboard items will, pinned items will not be wiped during your computer’s restart.

The default setting for clipboard history is off, so to start using the feature, you’ll have to turn it on. Turning clipboard history on and accessing your clipboard history is straightforward for Windows users: simply press the Windows logo key (located on the bottom left row of your keyboard) + V. If clipboard history is not yet turned on, select the Turn on button that appears in the pop-up clipboard window. Once selected, your system will automatically direct you to the clipboard history where you can paste individual items and pin frequently used items for future use. To pin, simply click the three horizontal dots along the top right of each clipboard item and select Pin.

Conveniently, you can also share your clipboard items across all your Windows 10 devices. To do this, follow the command chain Windows logo key > Settings > System > Clipboard. Once in the clipboard, select the option Automatically sync text that I copy under the Sync Across Devices category. Because the sync feature is tied to your Microsoft account (either personal or work), you must use the same login information on all devices for the tool to work correctly.

Unfortunately, the clipboard history tool is not supported for Mac users, so a third-party app will have to be installed to reap the benefits of that capability. Please consult with your IT team in accordance with your organization’s policies on the installation of third-party applications.

Although the clipboard history feature is Windows-based, designDATA has Mac experts that can help you find the right third-party software to ensure your productivity needs are also met.