Windows 10 Clipboard: Advanced Features

Clipboard (Clipboard) – a special intermediate zone where on the computer when copying, cutting or pasting, the desired object is placed: a selected piece of text, a picture, a file or a folder. The Windows clipboard is one of the main operating system tools that all computer users encounter.

The clipboard on a computer works not only with the system, but with all applications, it can be used to transfer data between different programs. In fact, this is a kind of “pocket” – an intermediate storage for the exchange of information, which temporarily stores data before inserting it elsewhere on the computer.

During normal work on a computer, users do not even think about the existence of this function, automatically performing routine operations to move data to a PC.

How to find copied to the Windows clipboard

All information stored in the clipboard is placed in the computer’s memory, as well as a system file located in the folder with the Windows operating system. You can find the clipboard in the following way:

C:\Windows\System32\clip.exe

But this will not give the user much, since, starting with the Windows 7 operating system, it is not possible to directly access the content. Information from the clipboard can be obtained using specialized applications. There are articles on this site about some of these programs.

Working with the Clipboard

In everyday work, users are constantly faced with a system tool designed to exchange data on a computer. For example, the user copies an image or piece of text and then pastes the copied image into another document or folder.

In other cases, the object is completely moved to the clipboard from the previous location, and then it appears in the new location after pasting.

To do this, in the context menu of Explorer or in application programs, there are commands “Copy”, “Cut”, “Send”, “Paste”, etc.

As a result, data moves freely between completely different applications. To move files, not only the context menu is used, but also Windows hotkey combinations .

Keyboard Shortcuts	Action
Ctrl+A	selecting objects in the active window
ctrl+c	object copy
Ctrl + X	object cutting
Ctrl+V	object insertion

At a time, you can place not only one file or text fragment on the clipboard, but also entire folders or groups of pre-selected files and folders.

All copied information, until it is moved to another location, takes up space in the PC’s memory. This data is deleted after adding a new file to the clipboard.

How to Clear the Windows Clipboard

The clipboard stores information only as long as you have not placed another file, the contents of a text document, or a folder there. After that, the old data is deleted, they are replaced by new information.

All data from the clipboard is immediately deleted after the computer is turned off, so this information cannot be saved. The clipboard is a temporary intermediate storage for data on a computer.

Enhanced Clipboard Windows 10

The clipboard in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and earlier versions of Windows 10 has a serious limitation: after a new piece of data is placed there, the old information is automatically deleted.

Unfortunately, therefore, it is not possible to use the clipboard as a “piggy bank”, adding files there, and then pasting them all at once or individually in the right places. This feature only works in Microsoft Office applications, where you can save up to 20 text snippets.

Another solution to the problem is to use additional programs that can save data from the clipboard. For some applications, you will find information in the article Where to find the Windows Clipboard .

Currently, the Windows 10 clipboard allows you to work with a large number of files in some formats. There are options for using the cloud clipboard. In this case, the contents of the clipboard are synchronized with other devices running in your account, so the information from the clipboard will be available on another computer or phone.

The exchange of some data is organized using a system tool that uses the Windows 10 Clipboard History. This feature is available to users starting with Windows 10 version 1809.

Working with the Windows 10 clipboard in advanced mode comes with the following features:

• Use your Microsoft account , which is linked to the cloud, to sync data between your devices.
• The size of the object placed in the clipboard history must not exceed 4 MB.
• Text, HTML and bitmaps are supported.
• There is a limit – a limit of no more than 25 copied records.

All other objects in Windows 10, such as folders or other types of files, are moved on the computer using the clipboard as usual. Information is erased from the clipboard after adding a new object there.

Now let’s see where the Windows 10 clipboard is enabled and how to use this tool.

How to open the Windows 10 clipboard – 1 way

By default, Windows 10 uses the normal Clipboard features. To use the advanced option, you need to activate some settings in the operating system settings.

Go through the following steps:

1. Right click on the start menu.
2. In the context menu, click on “Settings”.
3. Enter the “System” section.
4. Open the Clipboard tab.
5. In the Clipboard History section, move the toggle switch to the On position.

How to enable the Windows 10 clipboard – method 2

There is an easier way to enable viewing the contents of the Windows 10 clipboard. To do this, you must follow these steps:

1. Press the “Win” + “V” keys.
2. The Clipboard window opens in the notification area, informing you that the log cannot be displayed.
3. Click on the “Enable” button for the clipboard log activation log in Windows

Clipboard: How to View in Windows 10

Immediately after switching on, the Windows 10 clipboard will be empty until the moment when new copied information is added there.

You can access the Windows 10 clipboard in the following way:

1. Press the “Win” + “V” keys.
2. The copied items will appear in the clipboard window.

Working with the Windows 10 Clipboard

Copied or cut objects are stored in the clipboard history. Some operations are available to the user:

• Can pin the desired items so that they are not removed from the clipboard when new items are added or the computer is turned off.
• Enable sync to access clipboard data from other devices that are managed by the same account.

In order to synchronize the contents of the clipboard between different user devices, you need to change the settings of the operating system:

1. Press the Win + I keys to launch the Settings app.
2. Enter the “System” settings.
3. In the “Clipboard” tab, in the “Synchronization between devices” section, click on the “Get started” button.

You can choose one of the suggested options:

• Automatically sync the text I copy.
• Never automatically sync text I copy.

This option should be used if the user is logged in on different devices with the same Microsoft account.

A popular operation is to view the Windows 10 clipboard:

1. Press the “Win” + “V” keys.
2. The open window will display the clipboard history in Windows 10.

To pin or remove the desired item in the clipboard history, do the following:

1. Select the desired object in the Clipboard window.
2. Click on the three-dot button in the upper right corner of the individual item field.
3. In the menu that opens, select one of the options:

• Delete – Delete this element.
• Pin – Pins the item to the clipboard.
• Clear All – clears all items from the clipboard.

As a result of your actions, the element will be removed from the clipboard or pinned to the clipboard.

If necessary, a pinned element can be unpinned or deleted at any time.

Windows 10 Clipboard Hotkeys

The clipboard supports the work of “hot” keys, which you can see in the table.

Keyboard shortcuts for the Windows 10 clipboard (table):

Keyboard Shortcuts	Action
Win+V	opening Clipboard Windows 10
P	pinning the selected item to the clipboard
U	deleting the selected item in the clipboard after turning off or restarting the PC
Del	deleting an item from the clipboard

Clearing the Windows 10 Clipboard

If necessary, the user can immediately clear the entire exchange history on his PC and from the cloud, if he uses this function, or delete only individual elements from there.

To delete an individual item that is on the clipboard, you will need to perform some actions:

1. After pressing the “Win” + “V” keys, select the unwanted element.
2. Then click on the three dots to bring up the menu.
3. Select “Delete” from the open menu.

In another option, this action is performed using the “Del” key.

Complete deletion of the contents of the clipboard is performed as follows:

1. Enter the start menu.
2. Launch Options.
3. In the options, open the “System” window.
4. In the “Clipboard” tab, go to the “Clear clipboard data” option.
5. Click on the “Clear” button.

All data except for pinned items will be deleted from your computer and the Microsoft cloud clipboard.

Article Conclusions

While working on a computer, users constantly use the clipboard function to copy or move files, folders, text to other places on their PC. The Windows 10 operating system has an extended clipboard, in which pinned data is saved using logging, there are opportunities to synchronize the contents of the clipboard between several devices working in the same account.