No more copying and pasting into Slack or Teams to swap data between devices.
Microsoft has finally delivered one among the single-most requested crossover productivity features between Windows and Android: a cloud clipboard.
No longer will you’ve got to repeat and paste text between your favorite messaging app and your work documents. Instead, the cloud clipboard will record your Android inputs and permit you to repeat them to your Windows machine—a massive timesaver, little question about it.
Latest SwiftKey Beta Enables Cloud Clipboard—At Last
Windows 10 has long had a cloud clipboard option. Once enabled, you’ll share your Windows 10 clipboard across your connected Windows 10 devices, sharing your copied snippets and files between machines fairly seamlessly.
However, one long-time gripe is that you couldn’t share your clipboard content between Android devices and Windows 10. At least, not easily.
But now, the newest Microsoft SwiftKey Beta update has delivered the feature many users are expecting after months of speculation: cloud clipboard sharing between Windows and Android devices.
The days of emailing yourself website links, phone numbers, and addresses are a thing of the past. Instead, you’ll now use Microsoft SwiftKey’s Cloud Clipboard feature to sync your copied text across all of your devices.
Sure, sharing copied content between your devices isn’t that difficult, especially with the myriad chat apps and cloud storage tools most people use daily. But anything that creates the method easier and, importantly, faster may be a welcome addition.
One important thing to notice is that the cloud clipboard feature doesn’t save an awful lot of data. Consistent with the SwiftKey update page, “Your Cloud Clipboard will only ever retain your last copied clip. So your clip is going to be available for an hour.”
If you’re working between machines simultaneously, that may not be a problem. But if you were getting to cloud clip something to be used later, you ought to consider an alternate sharing option.
How to Use Cloud Clipboard With the SwiftKey Beta and Windows 10
As you would possibly expect, accessing the cloud clipboard between Android and Windows 10 may be a two-part process.
First up, on your Android device:
- You need a copy of SwiftKey for Android
- Once installed, head to Rich input > Clipboard
- Tap the Sync clipboard history to the cloud button
- Sign in to your Microsoft Account
Next, on your Windows 10 machine:
- Head to Settings > System > Clipboard
- Select Clipboard history to switch it on
- Select Sync across devices to enable cloud clipboard sharing
- Sign in to your Microsoft Account if requested
Cloud clipboard may be a welcome addition to the OS (both Android and Windows 10), but if you’re sharing an excellent deal of data frequently, other cloud data sharing options may better fit your requirements.
