6 clipboard managers for Windows that will change how you work

Working at a computer often involves a lot of repetitive tasks, with a common one being having to copy and paste content from one place to another. When you copy content in Windows, that content is saved in the clipboard, but normally, it’s overwritten the next time you copy more content.

But that’s where clipboard managers can change the game. By allowing you to store clips in the clipboard for longer and use them at a moment’s notice, they can really speed up your workflow and make things so much easier by automating certain processes. There are plenty of clipboard managers for Windows out there, so here are a few of the best ones you should check out.

6

The Windows Clipboard

Wait, what?

It may come as a surprise to some users, but Windows 11 actually comes with a clipboard manager of its own, and I would dare say this is more than good enough for most people. It does have some limitations, but it nails the basics, and it’s right there, available with almost no set up needed.

The lame thing about the Windows clipboard is that it’s turned off by default, but when you access it for the first time (by pressing Windows + V on your keyboard), you can activate it with a simple click, and from there, it will keep track of the things you copy.

You can paste anything you’ve copied during your current session, though older items are overwritten once there’s too much content in the clipboard. If you don’t want to lose a specific item, you can pin it to the clipboard, and at that point it will always be available, even after you turn off your PC. The Windows clipboard can even sync across devices with the same Microsoft account, and if you use the SwiftKey keyboard on your phone, it syncs with that, too.

Related

How to enable clipboard syncing in Windows 11

Clipboard syncing in Windows lets you easily move images and text across your Windows and Android devices. Here’s how to enable it.

The problems with the Windows clipboard are mostly that not everything can be stored in it, mostly just text and images, and if the images are too large, they may still not be supported. Larger images can also be removed from the clipboard if you copy other items. The sync speed is also not as fast as you might want for something like this. But even with those limitations, it can be a life-saver, and I use the Windows clipboard all the time to make my life easier.

5

Clipdiary

A simple power-up

Clipdiary is an alternative to the built-in

Windows clipboard
that doesn’t try to do too much, but it does what it sets out to do pretty well. This is a fairly simple and straightfrward app that lets you manage your text-based clips from the clipboard. It doesn’t work with images or files, but it functions pretty well for managing bits of text. In addition to monitoring your clipboard, Clipduary lets you create snippets with longer bits of text that you can paste when you need them, saving you some time.

It also has a simple built-in macro feature that can input specific kinds of data, so you can enter the current date, for example, or generate a random number in the interval you define. It’s not going to blow your mind, but Clipdiary is a neat little clipboard manager for basic use, and it feels a bit more responsive than the Windows implementation.

4

Ditto

Simple, but effective

If you’re not happy with the built-in clipboard solution, Ditto is a great alternative that might just win you over. It’s a very simple alternative on the surface, but it does many things a lot better than the default option.

For one thing, Ditto retains the items on your clipboard for a lot longer than the Windows clipboard, even after a restart, without having to set up anything special. You can set items to expire if you want to, but that’s not necessary. What’s more, Ditto also supports a lot more types of content, so if you copy a file in

File Explorer
, that information is also saved and you can then paste it in a different folder, even if you copied other things in the meantime.

Other benefits include the ability to create shortcuts for pasting up to the first ten items on the clipboard, so you don’t always have to open the menu. You can also text items after you’ve copied them if you want to fix up some typos or something.

Ditto hasn’t received updates in a while, but it’s still perfectly functional on Windows 11, and it’s easy to recommend.

3

ArsClip

For those with a bit more time to learn

I’ll admit I’m generally more partial to apps that are easy to get to grips with, even if the functionality isn’t always as advanced as some others might like. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to get into the weeds a bit more to get full customization options, then ArsClip may be for you.

This is a clipboard manager with a lot to offer on top of the standard clipboard capabilities. For one thing, ArsClip can monitor your clipboard as you’d expect, but it can also be used as a clipboard for specific clips that you choose to save permanently. Say you have a bit of text you use frequently, like a farewell you use in emails and letters — ArsClip makes it easy to paste those bits of text instantly. But what’s potentially more interesting is the ability to create macros and save them as clips. I’m no expert here, but one of the suggested macros is for highlighting the current line of text, and sure enough, when I created this macro and used it, it did just that. But there’s a lot more you can do with these macros, which also support JavaScript.

Even aside from that, there’s a ton you can configure, from how many clips should be saved to how they’re organized. I can’t say I’ve really grasped everything ArsClip can do, and for some people, maybe that’s a good thing.

2

ClipboardFusion

Sync across devices (if you pay)

ClipboardFusion comes from Binary Fortress, a team also notable for its DisplayFusion software that’s great for making the best out of

multi-monitor setups
. ClipboardFusion wants to do the same for the clipboard, with the ability to store all kinds of text and image items and plenty of customization options to make sure it fits your needs, including setting the maximum number of clips to save, or saving custom clips that are always available.

One of the big noteworthy features here is the ability to create macros using C# or Visual Basic, which let you take all kinds of actions on a text. ClipboardFusion is mostly free, but if you pay for the Pro version, you also get some extra goodies, like the ability to sync your clipboard across devices (even macOS, Android, and iOS), and setting triggers that can automatically perform actions like scrubbing the text to remove formatting or other issues like whitespaces at the beginning or end of a clip.

Whether those features are worth paying for is certainly questionable, but ClipboardFusion is a very capable clipboard manager that can really speed up your workflow, even in the free version.

1

ClipClip

Capable, but user-friendly

Another great option you can find online is ClipClip, and aside from the seemingly poorly maintained website, this one is still a pretty good alternative, too.

ClipClip does the basic stuff you’d expect, monitoring your clipboard to save anything you copy to use later, whether that’s text, images, or files. A big benefit over something like the Window clipboard is that you can manually set the maximum size of text and image clips, so if you want, any image can be stored in the clipboard without issues.

ClipClip also provides a lot of organization tools, with a handful of default folders where you can manually add clips for things like addresses, signatures, or even FAQ answers, so you don’t have to type out repetitive information every time it’s asked of you. It’s a pretty great time saver, and while other apps also do this, ClipClip provides much cleaner organization and an easy to understand interface that makes everything come much more naturally.

One interesting standout feature of ClipClip is that it can also translate copied text to a few other languages. It’s sadly limited to translating into Spanish, Chinese (simplified), Hindi, and Arabic, but it’s still a nice feature to have built right into the clipboard manager. There’s also a built-in screenshot and screen recording tool, though there are probably better alternatives for that kind of feature.

Power up your Windows clipboard

Those are all the apps we can really recommend for managing your clipboard in Windows right now. There are other options out there, but we strove to include apps that stand out, and other options we tested didn’t offer anything particularly unique.

That being said, there are other options out there, such as Clipboard Master or CopyQ, which are completely valid if the options on this list don’t appeal to you.