Almost every day we are using clipboards on different devices, including Windows operating system. In this short article we will take a deeper look at the Windows 10 clipboard and show how to clear it up.
What is a Clipboard?
Clipboard is a special zone at RAM, which is used by system to temporary store some little pieces of data. It can contain text, some images or other information. This RAM area is available in all programs running on Windows in the current user session. With the help of clipboard tool, user gets opportunity to copy and paste information in Windows in a very comfortable and easy way.
When you copy or cut something (by using the key combinations Ctrl + C and Ctrl + X), information gets into clipboard. When you are pasting something (by pressing Ctrl + V), information transfers via clipboard. The important thing is that clipboard allows you to keep copy of 1 item only (it can be 1 file, image or a piece of text). In case you often cut, copy or paste data, it can be useful to take a look at the clipboard to see what it contains at the moment.
How to View Clipboard’s Content in Windows 10?
You could view the content of the clipboard by running a special command in Windows XP, but in newer OS builds this functionality was eliminated by developers (most likely, they decided that it’s useless).
The easiest way to view the clipboard is to paste its content. In case you know what type of information is in clipboard, you can place it in the needed place. If it’s text or image – paste them in Word document, if there’s some file in clipboard – paste it using File Explorer.
How to Clear Clipboard in Windows 10?
Why do you need to clear the clipboard? For example, you use a public computer, or workplace that is used by several people. If you have placed confidential data (passwords, credit card details, etc.) to the clipboard, you don’t want another user to see this sensitive data. Also now there is a whole class of Trojans who purposely collect confidential information from the clipboard of infected computers and send it to the attackers’ servers. You can also need to clear the clipboard when you need to urgently free up some amount of RAM (if there is a fairly large object on the clipboard, for example, a high-resolution photo).
Clearing the clipboard is a pretty useful function. You can use it, for example, when you need to give an access to your PC to someone else. You can do this by using the following instructions:
How to clear clipboard by running a command
- Press Win + R.
- Type in the following command:
cmd /c echo.|clip
- Run it by pressing Enter.
It’s ready! Now your clipboard has been cleared.
An even easier way to clear the clipboard is to simply copy any other information into it, or take a screenshot using the PrintScreen or Alt + PrintScreen keys (the buffer will contain a screenshot of several megabytes).
If you end your Windows session by running the logoff command, the clipboard is cleared automatically.
How to Create a Shortcut to Clear Clipboard?
In order not to run the Сommand prompt window each time and not to enter the clipboard clear command, you can create a shortcut with this command and pin it, for example, in the taskbar and assign some shortcut key. Then you can run this shortcut when you need to quickly clear the clipboard.
- Right click on the Desktop.
- Choose New, then click on Shortcut.
- In the Type the location of the item field type the following command and click Next:
cmd /c echo.|clip
- Give the Shortcut a name (for example, Clean up clipboard) and press Finish.
- You can add a Shortcut to your Taskbar, just move it there by using a mouse.
How to add a keys shortcut to clear clipboard in Windows 10?
- Press Win + R.
- Type in the following command and press Enter:
- Copy the Shortcut created earlier to the newly opened folder.
- Right click on it and choose Properties.
- Switch to Shortcut tab, click on Shortcut key field and press the key combination which you want to be assigned as hot keys.
- Press Apply.
How to Clear the Clipboard History in Windows 10 1809?
In the Windows 10 1809 build (October 2018 Update) a new Clipboard History feature has appeared. This is a cloud-based buffer that allows you to synchronize the contents of the clipboard and its history between multiple devices that use one Microsoft account. The maximum data size in the clipboard history is 4 MB (max image size – 1 MB).
You can clear the Clipboard History from the Settings app (Settings > System > Clipboard). Just click on the Clear button in the Clear Clipboard Data section.
If you have pinned items in Clipboard History, you will have to manually remove them.
Here you can disable the saving of command history to the cloud clipboard.
You can also clear the Clipboard History by pressing the Win + V keys and clicking the Clear All button.