How to enable and view Clipboard history on Windows 11 to be more efficient
Microsoft takes copy and paste to the next level with clipboard history on Windows 11. You can use clipboard history on Windows 10, but in this guide we will walk you through how to do it on Windows 11. It’s not a complicated process, here’s what you need to do.
Turn on clipboard history on Windows 11
Here is what you need to do to enable clipboard history on Windows 11.
1. Open settings.
2. Go to System > Clipboard.
3. Turn on the clipboard history switch On position (turn it to the Out of position to turn off the function).
Once you have followed these steps, clipboard history will be enabled on your PC.
View and use clipboard history
At this point, it is important to note that the content on your clipboard only supports copying images from select apps like Edge or the Snipping Tool.
You can still right-click and select either copy or paste from the context menu, or use the reliable copy-paste keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V) Text and images separately.
But when clipboard history is on, you can select from other items you’ve previously copied. Use the Windows key + V Keyboard shortcut to see what content has already been copied.
Here is an example of using clipboard history on Windows 11.
1. Launch the app, website, or document to paste the copied text. In this example, I copied and pasted elements from Xbox into a WordPad document to launch the brand new Home UI in 2023.
2. Use the Windows key + V Keyboard shortcut to open clipboard history. The most recently copied items appear at the top of the list.
3. Click on any item in the clipboard history list to paste it into the open application.
4. If you want to remove items from the clipboard history, click the three-dot menu and select the trash can icon to delete the item.
5. You can also pin an item to the clipboard history. When you pin the item, it stays in the list even if you restart your computer or click Delete All. Click the pin icon to pin an item. To unpin an item, click the thumbtack icon again to unpin an item.
6. Clipboard history on Windows 11 also has the ability to paste an item as text if needed. So if you copied something and want to paste it as plain text, click the three-dot menu and then click the notepad icon to paste an item as plain text (without formatting).
7. If you want to clear your clipboard history list, just click Delete everything button to erase everything.
Remember that pinned items remain unless you unpin them or turn off clipboard history in Windows 11 settings.
Disable clipboard history
If you no longer want to use clipboard history on Windows 11, you can disable it. Here’s what you need to do.
1. Open settings.
2. Go to System > Clipboard.
3. Toggle Clipboard history to the Out of Position. If you turn it off, your copied content will be automatically deleted.
If you want to clear everything from your clipboard history to start over but leave the feature enabled, you can click Clear Button next to “Clear data from clipboard”.