System clipboard
The system clipboard is the most basic and most frequently used clip source.
In-app toggles
Under Sources, open Clipboard to manage capture sources and app filters. Wording may vary by build.
| Toggle | What it does |
|---|---|
| General → Enable Source | Detects clipboard changes and saves them to clip history |
| Ignore Sensitive Content | Skips passwords and other sensitive content |
| Ignore Temporary Content | Skips temporary content from other apps |
If copies never reach history, confirm Enable Source first, then review the ignore toggles and platform limits in Clipboard background monitoring.
How it works
When you do any of the following in the system:
- Copy
- Cut
- Paste content from another app into the system clipboard
The app listens for clipboard changes in the background. When new content appears, it:
- Reads the full current clipboard payload (text, images, files, mixed content, and so on)
- Packages it as one clip
- Writes it to clip history for later search, sync, and reuse
In short: each successful capture adds one row you can browse and search later in clip history.
Why do this?
- Avoid “I copied it but cannot get it back”
- Keep more than one item—a browsable timeline instead of a single slot
- Lay the groundwork for search, organization, and cross-device sync
If you treat the clipboard only as a temporary handoff, content gets lost; here it becomes a traceable stream.
Privacy and security
- Clipboard content is read on the device as part of capture
- Whether content syncs to the cloud or other devices is controlled separately in features such as Cloud Sync and Nearby Sync
- You can turn off or pause clipboard listening in Settings, or use per-app rules and exclusion lists so sensitive scenarios are not recorded
Next
For continuous background capture, see Clipboard background monitoring and the quick enable guide. To find and organize history, see Clip history overview. If copies never land in history, use First-run troubleshooting.