When you copy something in Windows and paste it somewhere else, the data you have on the clipboard doesn’t disappear. If you want to clear out your Windows 10 clipboard history and keep your clipboard to yourself, there are several different ways to do this.
What Is Clipboard History?
The Clipboard is a temporary storage place for data when you are copying and pasting items. In previous versions of Windows, you could not keep a record of what you copied. Whenever you put something into the Clipboard, the last entry was deleted.
The October 2018 update first gave users the ability to keep a history of items and text you had copied. You can go back and paste an item more than once or pin items that you paste more frequently to the panel so you won’t delete them by mistake.
You can check whether your computer has Clipboard history enabled by pressing Win + V while in any program. If the box that appears says you need to enable history, your machine is only saving one item at a time. You can enable the history by clicking the button.
Should You Delete the History?
The ability to save a history of your copied items has a lot of advantages, so why should you think about deleting that history (or part of it)?
First, large amounts of data on the Clipboard reduces the amount of memory available. The Clipboard can hold up to 4MB. Having the Clipboard full can slow down your computer.
If you are using someone else’s computer, you don’t want to leave your clipboard items where the owner can see them, especially if they are personal.
Do you let anyone else use your computer? They have access to what is on the Clipboard. If you have confidential or sensitive data on there, It remains available and can be seen by everyone using the device.
Lastly, if you copied and pasted a password, it will be available for others to see in the history.
How to Delete Partial or All Clipboard History
To fix these issues, you can clear the history that your computer is storing. There are several different ways to do this.
Add an Empty Item to Clipboard History
This method will add an empty item to the clipboard history so that you can’t paste anything. It doesn’t delete the entire history – it just makes it impossible for someone to access your last pasted item.
1. Press the Win + R keys to open the Run box.
2. Type cmd /c "echo off | clip".
3. Click OK.
Clear All Clipboard History
To clear all the entries on your Clipboard, use the Clipboard settings menu.
1. Open the Start menu and type Clipboard in the search box.
2. Click on the Clipboard settings icon.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the window and click the Clear button under the Clear clipboard data section.
Clear Specific Items
You can choose to delete only one or two images or clips at a time instead of clearing the entire history, too. To do this, you can use the Clipboard panel.
1. Press Win + V.
2. Click on the three dots in the upper-right corner of the item you want to delete.
3. Click the Delete button.
You can also delete the entire history from this panel by clicking the “Clear all” option.
Although the Clipboard isn’t something you often think about, be aware that what you copy and paste can be accessed by anyone. It doesn’t have a separate security option.
If you don’t want to worry about someone accessing your Clipboard history and don’t think you will have many reasons to go back and paste something more than once, you can turn the option off. Open the Clipboard history and toggle the switch off.
Clear Using Command Prompt
You can also clear your Windows 10 clipboard using the command prompt. With this method, the Clipboard will stop, and then restart, ultimately clearing the entire clipboard history.
1. Open the Start menu and search for Command Prompt.
2. Run “Command Prompt as an Administrator.”
3. Enter the below command:
for /f tokens^=2* %i in ('sc query^|find "Clipboard"')do >nul cd.|clip & net stop "%i %j" && net start "%i %j"
Clear Using PowerShell
Advanced users can also make use of Windows PowerShell to clear Windows 10 clipboard history.
1. Open the Start menu and search for Windows PowerShell.
2. Run “PowerShell as an administrator.”
3. Copy and paste the below command:
Restart-Service -Name "cbdhsvc*" -force
4. That’s it! This will clear all of your Windows 10 clipboard history.
Clear by Creating a Desktop Context Menu
If you want a one-click solution, then you can create a desktop context menu. Here’s how you can do that:
1. Press Win + R on your keyboard to open the Run command.
2. Type regedit and hit the Enter button.
3. Head over to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackground
You can also paste it in the address bar of Registry Editor.
4. Right-click on the “shell” folder on the left pane below the “Background” folder and select “New -> Key.”
5. Name it “Clear clipboard.”
6. Right-click on this newly-created Clear clipboard folder and navigate to “New -> Key.”
7. Name the created key as “Command.”
8. Select the Command key and on the right side, click on Default. Under “Value Data,” type the below:
cmd.exe /c echo off | clip
9. Hit the OK button and close the Registry Editor.
10. To clear the Windows 10 clipboard, right-click on your desktop home screen and click the “Clear clipboard” option.
Wrapping Up
These are some of the best, effective ways via which you can clear the Windows 10 clipboard and prevent someone from misusing clipboard information. If copy and paste are not working on your machine, you can read more about how to fix the copy and paste problems in Windows.
