How to access clipboard on iPhone
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Key takeaways:
- The iPhone clipboard saves only one item at a time.
- You can paste your clipboard into the Notes app and keep multiple copies of it there, editing them as you need. Launch Notes > Create a new note > tap and choose Paste to insert your clipboard content.
- The Paste app is a better option as it lets you copy and paste multiple items on your iPhone and provides a complete clipboard history. Paste is available to you absolutely free for seven days during the trial of Setapp.
If you’re used to copy-pasting text and files quickly on Mac, and maybe even using third-party apps to store your whole clipboard history, you’d be surprised at how limited the clipboard functionality on iPhone is.
At first, you might even ask, “Where is my clipboard on my iPhone?” Indeed, there’s no option to see your iPhone clipboard by default. And since it’s only stored in temporary memory, it gets wiped out every time you restart the phone. Storing more than one item in clipboard is also not possible — the original file would simply be overwritten.
So you have to be careful. But at least we now have the copy, paste, and cut functionality. In the original iPhone, even these features were not available.
However, the clipboard on iPhone situation is not that bad after all. In this article, we’ll show you how to find your clipboard on iPhone and how to improve its functionality in a few different ways.
Where is the clipboard on my iPhone?
Since iOS is a closed ecosystem, a clipboard is an internal function stored in virtual memory. Users can’t see the clipboard content or edit in any way by default. But, of course, there are a few hacks for how to get to clipboard on iPhone.
You can paste your clipboard in the Notes app (or any other text editor) and keep multiple copies of it there, editing them as you need. You can use an excellent Shortcuts app to create a shortcut for showing your clipboard. Finally, you can also use a third-party app like Paste.
Let’s discuss how to see clipboard on iPhone in three ways.
How to see your clipboard on iPhone with Notes
The easiest way to see and manage your clipboard on iPhone is to use a text-editing or a note-taking app. For most people, the first app that comes to mind would be Notes.
To edit the clipboard content in Notes:
- Launch Notes
- Create a new note
- Tap and select Paste to insert your clipboard content
The benefit of using Notes to manage your clipboard is that it’s simple and allows you to paste lots of clips and manage them separately. The downside is that keeping up with everything in your Notes might seem like too much work. Especially, since there are better options out there.
How to use clipboard on iPhone with Shortcuts
Surprisingly, Apple does include an option to adjust your clipboard, but it’s hidden in its default Shortcuts app.
Here’s how to find clipboard on iPhone with Shortcuts:
- Launch Shortcuts
- Navigate to Gallery
- Search for Adjust Clipboard
- Add Shortcut
Now, every time you tap Adjust Clipboard from the My Shortcuts tab, you’ll get a pop-up menu with the option to edit your clipboard. You can even automate this shortcut further by calling on Siri to Adjust Clipboard.
However, while this method solves the problem of how to view clipboard on iPhone, it doesn’t let you see your complete clipboard history.
How to get to your clipboard on iPhone with Paste
The best way to solve the problem of how to see clipboard history on iPhone is by using a third-party app. iPhones have actually gone a long way in terms of allowing extension keyboards as well as access to the clipboard functionality to non-Apple apps.
Our favorite third-party clipboard app by far is Paste.
Paste lets you copy and paste multiple items on your iPhone without wondering where’s my clipboard on my iPhone. The whole clipboard history is in Paste, whether it’s text, links, images, screenshots, or any other file type. You can edit your clipboard right in the app and quickly copy it again to use somewhere else.
With Paste, you can also sync your clipboard with your Mac, create multiple pinboards for bookmarks, and search for anything in seconds.
As you can see, “Where is clipboard on iPhone?” is barely a question once you have the right tools at your disposal. Now you know how to open clipboard on iPhone with Notes, how to go to clipboard on iPhone with Shortcuts, and where is the clipboard on iPhone that is better than the default with Paste.
Best of all, Paste is available to you absolutely free for seven days during the trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 230 Mac and iOS apps for any task you can imagine, from personalizing your menu bar with Bartender to quitting all Mac apps at once with QuitAll. Try every Setapp app at no cost today and save the ones you like the most.
