Clipboard on iPhone: where it is, and how to keep a clipboard history

There's no clipboard app, folder or setting you can open on an iPhone. When you copy something, iOS keeps it in memory, and only that one thing: copy something else and the previous one is replaced. It's the same in every app, so what you copy in Safari can be pasted in Notes, Messages or WhatsApp.

To paste what's on the clipboard:

• Touch and hold a text box and tap Paste.
• Or pinch out with three fingers on the text box (pinch in with three fingers copies).
• In iOS 27, after you copy, the keyboard shows a Paste from [app] suggestion above the keys: one tap pastes it. It only ever shows your latest copy.

The first time an app reads something you copied in another app, iOS asks whether to Allow Paste. You can change it per app in Settings → Apps → the app → Paste from Other Apps (Ask, Deny or Allow).

The quickest way is to paste it somewhere harmless: open a new note in Notes, touch and hold, and tap Paste. If you want to check it often, make a shortcut:

1. 1Open the Shortcuts app and tap + to make a new shortcut.
2. 2Add the Get Clipboard action, then Show Result (or Quick Look).
3. 3Name it “Show clipboard” and add it to your Home Screen. Tap it to see what you copied last.

It shows the current item only. The iPhone has nothing earlier to show.

No. Not in iOS 26 and not in iOS 27: the iPhone clipboard holds one item. Unlike Windows (Win + V), Android keyboards like Gboard, or a Mac with macOS Tahoe (clipboard history in Spotlight), there's no list of earlier copies to scroll, search or pin. Something you copied an hour ago and then copied over is gone.

Universal Clipboard doesn't change that. It moves your last copy to a Mac or iPad nearby, signed in with the same Apple Account, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Handoff on. It keeps one item, only for a short time, and only between Apple devices: it doesn't reach a Windows PC.

That's why “iPhone clipboard history” means an extra app: a clipboard manager from the App Store (Paste is a known paid one, for Apple devices) or a clipboard in the cloud like Colurus, which also works on Windows.

A screenshot on the iPhone goes to Photos, not to the clipboard. So if you take one and tap Paste somewhere, nothing happens (or an older copy shows up). To copy a screenshot:

• Right after you take it, tap the thumbnail, tap Done and choose Copy and Delete.
• Or open it in Photos, tap Share and then Copy.

In Colurus you can skip the copy: tap Choose image and pick the screenshot from your library.

Colurus is a clipboard history in the cloud that works on iPhone, Android and PC. It runs in Safari, so there's nothing to install from the App Store. iOS doesn't let any app read your clipboard in the background, so on the iPhone you send each thing to Colurus yourself, with one tap; it stays saved until you delete it.

1. 1Open colurus.com in Safari and sign in with Google. To have it like an app, tap Share → Add to Home Screen.
2. 2Copy a text or a link anywhere, open Colurus and tap Paste, then the little Paste bubble iOS shows. It's saved.
3. 3For photos and screenshots, tap Choose image and pick them from your library.
4. 4To use something again, tap its card: a text or code is copied, a link opens, an image opens big to copy or save.

Search finds things without organizing them: AI reads the text in your screenshots and adds tags to images. What you use every day, like an address or an account number, can be pinned to the top. The free plan keeps 200 items.

This is where Universal Clipboard stops and Colurus keeps going. Open colurus.com on your Windows PC with the same Google account and everything you saved on the iPhone is there, ready to copy with a click. It works the other way too: press Ctrl + V on the PC, and on the iPhone tap the card to copy it. It's the closest thing to a universal clipboard for Windows and iPhone, and to sync the clipboard between your iPhone and PC without cables.

Just once, without an account? The free online clipboard sends texts and images from one device to another with a 6-character code, and there's a page to send photos from iPhone to PC.

• Paste something you just copied: touch and hold → Paste, or the suggestion above the keyboard.
• Copy on the iPhone, paste on your Mac or iPad: Universal Clipboard.
• Keep texts, links and screenshots, find them later and have them on a Windows PC: a free Colurus account.

On Android the history lives in the keyboard: see clipboard history on Android. On Windows it's Win + V; see how it compares in our Win+V alternative page.