The clipboard on your Android phone can be just as useful as the same feature on your Windows or macOS laptop. Although it can feel as though the cut, copy, and paste functions aren’t as well utilized on mobile as they are on desktop operating systems.
Whether you’re pasting an image from the web into an email, or copying an address from Google Maps into a chat conversation, the Android clipboard can save you a substantial amount of tapping and swiping—if you know how to use it properly.
The default Android clipboard actually comes with more capabilities than you might have realized—and it’s likely that you’ll want to make full use of them, once you know what they are. Here’s how the clipboard works on Pixel and Galaxy phones.
The clipboard on Google Pixel phones
To a certain extent, the features available through the clipboard on Android depend on the keyboard app you’ve got installed. If you’re on a Google Pixel phone, then that will be Google’s own Gboard by default, but you can install this keyboard on just about any Android phone you want, and get access to the same functionality.
Open up Gboard in any app (such as a messaging app), and you’ll see a clipboard icon above the rows of letters. Tap on this then turn on the toggle switch or choose Turn on clipboard to get at the full set of features offered by Gboard, including a clipboard history. Straight away you’ll see some tips on screen to help you get started.
There are a few ways to get text, links, and images to the clipboard, depending on the app you’re in. In Google Chrome, for example, press and hold on an image then choose Copy image to send it to the clipboard. In WhatsApp, press and hold on a message then tap the copy icon (the two rectangles) up at the top of the screen.
As soon as you copy or cut anything, you’ll see a small preview in the lower left hand corner. Tap the share button immediately to the right of the preview window, and you can quickly paste the text, link, or image into another app. You’ll see your most used apps and the contacts you most frequently communicate with listed first.
To see the items on the clipboard at any time, tap the clipboard icon in Gboard. You can then tap and hold on any item to paste, delete, or pin it—note that anything that isn’t pinned automatically disappears from the clipboard after an hour. You can also tap the pen icon to the top right to select multiple items at once.
Finally, there are some clipboard settings you can access too, by tapping the four dots in the top left corner of Gboard, then Settings and Clipboard. The toggle switches on the next screen let you show recent clipboard items in the keyboard suggestions bar, store screenshots in the clipboard, and pick out phone numbers and addresses from items.
The clipboard on Samsung Galaxy phones
On Samsung Galaxy phones, the clipboard works slightly differently—unless you’ve installed Gboard of course, in which case everything works largely as above. On Galaxy handsets, the default keyboard is the imaginatively named Samsung Keyboard, which pops up whenever you need to enter text in an app.
You’ll notice that this keyboard has a clipboard icon of its own, just above the rows of letters. This time though there’s no need to enable the full feature set of the clipboard, as there is on Pixel phones: The Samsung Keyboard clipboard stores multiple items right from the start, which you can see at any time by tapping the clipboard icon.
To paste anything from the keyboard into whatever box or field you’ve currently got selected, just tap on it. Tap and hold, and you get the option to delete items or pin them so they’re always accessible. Samsung doesn’t specify how long non-pinned items stick around for, but if there’s something you want to make sure doesn’t get lost, pin it.
To get at the settings for your Samsung Keyboard, tap the gear icon, which is just to the right of the clipboard. There’s only really one clipboard-related setting of note here, which is the Save screenshots to clipboard toggle switch: Turn this on if you want to see captured screenshots in the clipboard too.
As on Pixel phones, copying and pasting depends to some extent on the app you’re using. In the Samsung Internet browser, for example, you can tap and hold on an image then choose Copy image to send it to the clipboard. If you select text on a website, by tapping and holding on it, you’ll see a Copy button on the pop-up toolbar above.
You don’t get the clipboard preview you do on Pixel phones, but you can paste the most recently added clipboard item anywhere by tapping and holding on the screen—usually in a text field somewhere. As well as getting a Paste option, you’ll also see a Clipboard button that takes you to the full clipboard view.
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