[GUIDE] Understanding the Clipboard

belodion

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The Clipboard on an Android device is an area of storage or memory to which small items can be saved. It is not an app and it cannot therefore be opened or directly accessed. Items saved to it are retrieved by long-pressing a blank area of a text field, say, and tapping Paste. Some phones will save only one item to Clipboard, which is overwritten and lost if a second item is saved. Other phones will save up to ten items, the desired one being selectable from a list before Pasting.

On Samsung devices, Clipboard can be accessed by tapping the Settings icon near the bottom left on the stock keyboard, then tapping the Clipboard icon from the pop-up options. Items recently saved will then be shown.

If you wish to take the functions of Clipboard to another level, enter 'Clipboard' in the Play Store search box and peruse the results.

More important items are best saved to less ephemeral storage than Clipboard.

Addendum, added 25 Oct 2018: A beta version of Gboard is available, which includes a Clipboard Manager feature.*

*That proved to be shortlived, but a second attempt at it has been made in Gboard v8.0, available at the time of writing this second addendum - March 2019 - as a beta.

*Stability reported 30th June.



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Desiree Lee1

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the clipboard on an android device is an area of storage or memory to which small items can be saved. It is not an app and it cannot therefore be opened or directly accessed. Items saved to it are retrieved by long-pressing a blank area of a text field, say, and tapping paste. Some phones will save only one item to clipboard, which is overwritten and lost if a second item is saved. Other phones will save up to ten items, the desired one being selectable from a list before pasting.

On samsung devices, clipboard can be accessed by tapping the settings icon near the bottom left on the stock keyboard, then tapping the clipboard icon from the pop-up options. Items recently saved will then be shown.

If you wish to take the functions of clipboard to another level, enter 'clipboard' in the play store search box and peruse the results.

More important items are best saved to less ephemeral storage than clipboard.

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mine doesn't have it mine just had the emoji thing not the clipboard
 

Goshute

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On Marshmallow, default Samsung Galaxy S5 keyboard I don't see a clipboard icon. However, following from a closed thread with advice that appears to now be out-of-date, to access the clipboard content try this:
  1. Copy some text into the clipboard (in case it's completely cleared, which would be rare, but some privacy/antivirus apps do this)
  2. Open any app where you enter text (phone text messages, Facebook, whatever), and click into the text entry window
  3. Manually long press that window
  4. You should get a two part pop-up icon with Paste and Clipboard options.
  5. Select Clipboard.
  6. From the resulting window you can select recent clipped/copied content or Delete All clip content

(You may also be able to access the clipboard when selecting text, but the dialog is not consistent between apps and type of text. When in selection of a piece of text, your Cut, Copy, Paste, Share, etc, dialog may have a three vertical dot "more" menu which takes you to the clipboard content.)

Hope this helps someone.
 
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Welcome. :)

I'm not familiar with Samsung devices, so I don't know whether that's normal. I'll ask around.

Not to the left of my keyboard either--Samsung j7 crown--it's up on the tool bar of the keyboard, where the word suggestions, etc are. In settings under general management, then language and input, then on screen keyboard, select samsung keyboard then keyboard layout and feedback, the turn on the keyboard toolbar option. Now in the word suggestion bar you should have a weird smiling face to the left, tap that and you will see the tiny clipboard as the 1st icon. I can view clipboard.contents but if it isnt compatible with whatever dialog box I'm in then paste will not be an option. You can clear (delete) clpboard items from here tho. Hope this helps! I'm android 8.0 by the way!
 
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B. Diddy

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Welcome to Android Central! Correct. The standard clipboard only remembers the last item you copied to it. Once you copy something else to it, the previous item is cleared out.

Don't rely on the clipboard to save important data. Once you've copied something to the clipboard, paste it somewhere more permanent if it's important to you.
 

belodion

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Are you telling me you know no way to retrieve overwritten clipboards?

Well, I don’t know that doing that would be impossible as a basic principle of the entire universe: for all I know, there may be a way. In fact, I should imagine that there is. But, I have no idea what it would be.
 

blackhawkhot

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Are you telling me you know no way to retrieve overwritten clipboards?

Goggle it... probably not as there's no way I know of to scan for erased files on internal storage.
I send a text message to myself if I don't feel like creating a Word Document... an easy semipermanant scratch pad.
Note apps have failed too many times and cost me many hours to retrieve the mess they made... Samsung S Notes I'm looking at you:(
Use a Word Document format to save anything important...
 

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