Advancing Text Recall on Windows 11 Through Enhanced Clipping

The clipboard history is one of the signature features of Windows 11, allowing users to keep a record of everything they have copied before shutting down their computers. That said, the clipboard history functionality on Windows is not perfect and needs more work from Microsoft to make the experience better than it is today.

In this article, we are putting together a list of features Microsoft can add to improve the clipboard history capability in Windows 11. But before that, here is a brief introduction to the clipboard history feature.

What Is the Clipboard History, and How Do You Enable It?

Microsoft introduced the clipboard history capability to Windows 10 to make copy and paste more intuitive. It simply keeps a record of image and text items you have copied recently for you to paste later. This way, you can copy multiple items at once and then paste them instead of copying and pasting text and images one by one.

clipboard history is also available for Windows 11. You can turn on clipboard history from the Settings app in Windows 10 and 11. After enabling it from the Settings app, you can bring the clipboard history window by pressing Win + V on your keyboard.

However, after using it for some time, you will realize that it’s by no means perfect. Here are some of the capabilities Microsoft can introduce to make it perfect.

1. Pinned Items Should Show Up at the Top

Windows 11’s clipboard history allows you to pin copied items to make them stand out from the rest. However, the pinned items might get lost in the crowd if you keep copying text and images. You must then scroll to the bottom of the clipboard history window to find the pinned items.

clipboard history will be much better with pinned items always on top of the window. This will make pinned items easier to access, as they should be. We hope Microsoft will introduce this change in future software updates for Windows 11.

2. Ability to Search Through Clipboard History

You might often struggle to find the exact copied items, especially the older ones you are looking for in the clipboard history. Finding the same item you copied a couple of minutes ago will take less time with a simple search capability in the clipboard history window.

Windows 11 clipboard history should have the ability to allow users to search through it to make looking up copied items easier.

3. The Ability to Resize the Clipboard History Window

If you press Win + V on your keyboard, your PC will display the clipboard history window on the screen. However, the window is smaller than it should be for many people. The clipboard history window can get small when you use a large display, causing difficulty spotting the copied items.

Microsoft can address this issue by adding the ability to resize the clipboard history window. Windows users should be able to drag the window’s edges to change the size, just like how we can resize app windows.

4. Allow Pinning of Clipboard History to Taskbar

While opening the clipboard history in Windows 10 and 11 is already easy, it will be even more accessible if it gets pinned on the taskbar. This can be helpful if you are facing issues with keyboard switches (check out fixes for keyboard switch not working on Windows ), as pinning the clipboard history to the taskbar gives you an alternative way to access all the copied items.

5. Add Paste as Plain Text in Clipboard History

If you copy a piece of formatted text, the clipboard history on Windows will not allow you to paste it as plain text. You will have to change its formatting after pasting, which takes time and is not how many of us would want it to be.

Windows users can be more productive with the ability to paste as plain text capability in the clipboard history. Microsoft should at least give us the option on top of what we already have.

6. Clipboard Should Survive Through a Reboot

While clipboard history can get you access to recently copied items, it can’t survive a reboot. In other words, Windows wipes out all the copied items when you turn off or restart your PC. In that case, you need to start all over again.

Instead of wiping everything once the PC shuts down, Microsoft should add the option to save the copied items for a few days. You won’t need to worry when your PC restarts automatically, as your copied items will be saved in the clipboard history.

7. Increase the Number of Items Clipboard History Can Store

clipboard history can store up to 25 items you’ve cut or copied. That number may not be sufficient for a better workflow for someone who uses copy and paste extensively. Microsoft needs to increase the number of items that clipboard history can store to improve the overall copy-and-paste experience on Windows.

8. Bring the Option to Share Items in Clipboard History with Users

Many Windows users would want to share their clipboard history with others. This will enable other users to paste the same set of copied items. Hopefully, Microsoft will add this one, too, in future Windows 11 versions.

9. Other Improvements Microsoft Can Bring to Clipboard History

A piece of software is considered good when it is reliable with a minimum number of failures. clipboard history with all its flaws works well most of the time, but Microsoft needs to bring more improvements to make it more reliable and faster. Meanwhile, if you are facing issues, you can easily fix the clipboard history when it stops working on Windows.

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Microsoft Will Hopefully Improve Clipboard History… but Keep Your Expectations in Check

The aforementioned features will surely make clipboard history capability a lot more accessible to a lot of people. Given that it’s a long list of functionalities Microsoft needs to add, it can take years to add all of them to the clipboard history. Microsoft has to think about improving a lot of other areas of Windows 11, too.

In this article, we are putting together a list of features Microsoft can add to improve the clipboard history capability in Windows 11. But before that, here is a brief introduction to the clipboard history feature.