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How to access and manage your clipboard on Android
If you’re copying and pasting text on Android, knowing where the clipboard is is handy. Here’s how to find the clipboard on Android.
QUICK ANSWER
On Android 12 and older, open any text field and tap the Clipboard Icon to see the clipboard. You can tap on entries to paste them into a field and pin entries in place so they don't disappear after an hour by tapping and holding an entry. On Android 13 or newer, copy or cut any text and then tap the small preview window in the screen's bottom left-hand corner. This will open the clipboard where you can edit entries.
How to find and edit your clipboard on Android
You can access the clipboard in two ways on Android. Both are described below.
Using Gboard
Gboard is the official clipboard app from Google, and it comes installed by default on many Android phones. To access it, open any text field and tap on the Clipboard Icon at the top of the keyboard before you type anything.
Once you’re inside Gboard, you’ll see any text you have copied. If you want to paste that text into the current text field, tap the text. Tap the Pencil Icon in the upper right-hand corner to pin or delete entries. Alternatively, touch and hold some text to pin it in place. Otherwise, unpinned clips will delete themselves after one hour.
If this is your first time using Gboard, you may have to tap Turn on Clipboard before it becomes active.
To customize the keyboard further, tap the Gear icon > Clipboard. Here, you can choose whether recently copied text and images show up as suggestions, customize if phone numbers and addresses show up in recently copied text, and even enable the saving of screenshots to the clipboard.
Using visual clipboard
Since Android 13, Android phones get to use the visual clipboard by default. It makes it even easier to see your clipboard. Copy or cut some text, and you will see a small popup showing a preview of this text in the bottom left-hand corner. Tapping on that window lets you edit the clipboard’s contents before pasting it again. This feature works on compatible Pixel phones, but you may not see it on other models.
Android 14 made some changes to this layout, introducing a newer minimized version of this dialog that expands when you tap it.
FAQs
Yes, after one hour, clipboard entries delete themselves.
Anything you cut or copy gets saved to the Android clipboard.
To paste any entry from the clipboard, tap on it when you’re in a text field, and it will be pasted into that field.