Copying and pasting text on Android devices is one of the functions that has been available since the beginning of the Operating System. Most users often need to copy and paste a piece of text repeatedly throughout different apps and websites.
The clipboard feature in Android devices allows you to keep the copied text in the device memory, and use it on different textboxes. Most modern phones allow you to capture multiple pieces of text in the memory, and use them accordingly. But, this can lead to confusion when many different pieces of text get stored together in the clipboard.
Clearing the clipboard in Android is essential to avoid this problem. Most versions and skins of Android allow you to do so quite easily. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at the Android clipboard, and describe the easiest methods to clear the clipboard.
Contents
How to Access and Wipe the Clipboard in Different Versions of Android?
Stock Android
As you may already know, most manufacturers apply their own proprietary skins over the Stock version of Android. Most often, these have additional features like a separate clipboard manager which is not present in the stock version of Android. The stock keyboard on Android can only store the last copied text and does not have the ability to store multiple text pieces. Hence, the text stored in the clipboard gets automatically removed once pasted.
Stock Android (Google)
But the stock versions of Android that are available by default in phones like the Google Pixel, have their own keyboards installed in them. The ‘Gboard’ app used by these devices for text entry has a fully functional clipboard integrated into it. This allows you to easily manipulate the content of the copied texts in the clipboard and delete the unnecessary ones. Take a look at the steps to clear your clipboard in Google’s version of Stock android:
- Navigate to any place that accepts text on your phone, like search boxes or text messages.
- Once the keyboard pops up, tap on the three horizontal dots on the top right corner of the layout.
- Inside here, you should find a ‘Clipboard’ icon. Tap on it.
- Make sure that you have it turned on from the toggle on the top right corner.
- If you’ve copied any text recently, it should show up in this menu.
- To remove a certain piece of text on the clipboard, tap and hold it for a while.
- You should be presented with a hovering menu with the options – “Paste”, “Pin”, and “Delete”.
- To clear the text from the clipboard, tap on “Delete”.
- Once done, you should be rid of the contents of the clipboard.
- If you want to clear the entire clipboard including all the text that gets stored in there, then tap on the pencil button to access the mass editing options.
- Tick all the marks on the different text pieces that you want to remove from the clipboard, and then tap on “Delete”.
This will allow you to easily delete any text from the clipboard in Stock android phones that have Gboard as their default text editing app. Also, you can pin important text on the clipboard to easily access them whenever needed. The same procedure applies to any Android ROM that uses Gboard as its default keyboard.
For Samsung’s One UI and Other Similar Android Skins
As clarified earlier, manufacturers like Samsung use their own proprietary Android skins with added features. When typing anywhere on the OS, you can access one of the extra features. One of them is the integrated “Clipboard” option that comes with the “Paste” button. Take a look at the method by which you can clear the clipboard on your Samsung or other similar phones.
- Navigate to any desired text field on your phone.
- Tap and hold the text box to bring up the “Paste” and “Clipboard” options. There’s also the three vertical dots for extra options.
- In case you only have the “Paste” option, you can find the clipboard option inside the extras.
- Tap on the “Clipboard” option to bring up the saved texts and edit them.
- Tap on “Delete All” to clear all of the texts on the clipboard, or just select the ones to be removed, and tap on “Delete”.
This should clear any of the texts that you copied earlier which stays stored in the clipboard. In case you want to manage your clipboard even better, then you can always use a third-party text input app with an integrated clipboard manager which allows you to remove texts easily.
Using Third-Party Text Input Apps
In case your phone doesn’t have an in-built clipboard manager or you don’t like to use Gboard for text input, then there are several other alternatives that you can choose from.
If your device runs Android 9 or earlier, then you can use dedicated and standalone clipboard managers that are available on the Google Play store. But, if your device runs Android 10 or above, you cannot use these. This is because of enhanced security and privacy which does not let third-party apps access your clipboard.
But apps like Swiftkey, Microsoft Keyboard, or other alternatives allow you to use their clipboards instead of the stock Android one. They can also be used on phones with Android 10 or higher. They also offer other clipboard features that can help you to manage your copied texts better and are not available in stock.
Conclusion
Deleting text from the Android clipboard is essential in order to remove copied texts from the system memory. Although these can be helpful when trying to paste a piece of text on multiple locations, they can pose a privacy issue if someone else views your clipboard.
Most versions of the Android clipboard delete the stored text in them after a period of time. But in case you want to immediately delete them, the methods listed above should help you to do so quite easily.