How And Where To Access Clipboard on iPhone? 3 Simple Methods to do it.

Clipboards are one of the most important yet underrated features of any smartphone. A clipboard helps you to gain access to the text you have copied before.

The iPhone has had a lot of feature ups and downs over the years, but they’ve continued to refine their smartphone with each new iOS update. If there’s one feature that has consistently remained intact through all the changes, it’s the clipboard.

Till now, Apple doesn’t allow users to view and edit their clipboard on iPhone, but luckily third-party apps and shortcuts provide this feature, kind of.

In this article, I will be showing you the best possible ways to view and edit the clipboard on iPhone. This includes standalone apps, keyboard apps, and Siri shortcuts.

How to access the clipboard on iPhone

1. How to access the clipboard on iPhone using 3rd party apps from AppStore.

There are a lot of apps on the app store to help you store your clipboard and view its history. This makes it easier for anyone to access their clipboard on their iPhone.

Alternatively, a few keyboard apps also give you the functionality to view and access the clipboard on iPhone. However, let’s see the standalone apps first because not all the users will be liked to switch to a new keyword just to view the clipboard.

1. Paste – Clipboard Manager

Paste is one of the most popular clipboard managers on the app store that allows you to access and edit the clipboard.

Once you copied a text, you can either access the app within the keyboard or open the paste app to copy the content to the app. Then the app stores the content within itself for you to access later. This works with iCloud sync which allows you to access your clipboard on iPhone, iPad, and Mac simultaneously.

Additionally, there is a search bar that will allow you to search for your copied content more easily than looking for all the content to get the one you want.

Few things you should know before using the app.

• You can create multiple pinboards and save your content on any of them for organizing and easier access.
• Supports iCloud sync; You can access the paste app on multiple devices including iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• There are widgets available to access the paste quicker.
• Ability to share the copied content via Airdrop, email, and social media platforms.
• Siri shortcuts are available to fully customize the app as per your needs.
• Ability to access the clipboard within the keyboard for easier access (paid plan is required).

2. Clipboard – Paste Keyboard

This app is another great clipboard manager that lets you do the one that you’re looking for, which is to save and access the clipboard history.

Just like Paste(or any other app), the Clipboard only works if you open the app and paste the copied content. This means that the app will not work on its own. Moreover, this app can’t be accessed within the keyboard and requires you to open the complete app to copy and access the content.

Few things you should know before using the app.

• There is an option called background clipboard that runs in the background all the time to copy the content. However, it runs awkwardly on top of all the apps and still asks your permission to paste the content to its clipboard. Even though the UI is very small and runs on the top middle of the screen, it still feels a little weird.
• Syncs across all your device using iCloud sync.
• Can be accessed within the keyboard but requires you to completely change the keyboard.
• You can create beautifully designed lists that allow you to navigate to the required content more easily.

3. PasteKeyboard

Simple clipboard app that gets the job done. Simply copy the text and paste it into the app.

Then you can access the copied content from anywhere after adding the paste keyboard to your keyboard list. Unlike other apps on the list, you have to manually paste the copied content on this app. I mean you have to press and tap paste to paste the content.

On the other apps, It will automatically give you a prompt to paste the content when opening the app but this one doesn’t do that.

Few things you should know before using the app.

• Paste keyboard is very simple and easy to use without any fancy features.
• The clipboard can be directly accessed with the keyboard after switching to Pastekeyboard.
• On the free plan, ads might pop up while using the app. This can be removed with the paid plan as you would expect.

2. How to access clipboard on iPhone using Siri shortcuts?

Another great way to access the clipboard is to use the shortcut. There are a lot of useful shortcuts that make your life easier and one of them is the Adjust clipboard shortcut.

This shortcut will help you edit the copied text anywhere.

However, you can only edit the copied texts using this shortcut and can’t paste them into a place like you would do on an app.

For example, you can not save the text onto the shortcut and can only edit the last copied text. This restricts you from viewing the clipboard history because you technically haven’t saved any on the shortcut.

Here’s how to use the shortcut,

1. Go to the shortcuts app and head over to the gallery section.
2. Now search for the shortcut named “Adjust Clipboard” (or use this direct link) and add it to your shortcut list.
3. When you tap the shortcut, it will pull down a popup containing your recent copied content. You can edit and modify them from there.
4. Tap “done” to save the edited text.
5. You can either add the shortcuts to the widget section or ask Siri to run it for faster and easier access.

3. How to use Swiftkey to access clipboard on iPhone

There aren’t a lot of options when comes to the keyboard on iPhone. However, there are still some popular options to replace the default Apple keyboard such as Google’s Gboard and Microsoft’s Swiftkey.

With those two keyboard apps, only Swiftkey provides the option to view and edit the clipboard.

Here’s how

1. Go to the AppStore and search for “SwiftKey” or click here to get to the app.
2. Follow the on-screen wizard which will guide you to set up the keyboard.
3. Once the setup is completed, you can view and access the clipboard. Like any other app, you have to manually tap the action to do it and the app itself will not perform it automatically.
4. After you copied the content, open the keyboard and the Swiftkey will automatically prompt you to paste the copied content to the clipboard. Tap Allow Paste.

5. To access the clipboard, tap + and tap 📋︎ on the top bar of your Swiftkey keyboard.

6. On the following page, you can view, save and edit the text on the clipboard.

Conclusion

Getting the clipboard to show up on your iPhone is still a daunting task to do because Apple doesn’t provide a default way of achieving it.

As I mentioned in this article, there are a few ways to accomplish that but still, it’s not 100% possible because of the iOS limitations.

For example, everything you copied will not automatically be saved to clipboard managers, shortcuts, and keyboard apps. At present, you have to manually open the app directly or access it from the clipboard to save the content to the respective clipboards or apps.

Please note that to fully benefit from these apps, you need to give them full permission. This might allow the developers of the apps to read your copied content, which could include passwords, card details, and other private information.

So I suggest not copying any of this content to the 3rd party apps and shortcuts.