How to clear clipboard history on Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone
Every platform hides this somewhere different. Here is how to clear the built-in history or current item on each one.
On Windows, clear clipboard data in Settings or from the Windows key + V panel. On macOS Tahoe or later, open Spotlight's Clipboard view and choose Clear History from the More menu; older Macs only have the current item to overwrite. On Android, clear the list in your keyboard. On iPhone, overwrite the current item by copying something harmless. Clear any separate clipboard manager's history in that app.
How this guide was checked
Windows, macOS Spotlight, iPhone and Gboard clearing steps were checked against official platform documentation on September 26, 2026.
On this page
Windows 10 and 11
Windows keeps up to 25 items once clipboard history is enabled, and gives you both a bulk clear and a per-item delete.
- 1Press Windows key + V to open the history panel.
- 2To remove one entry, click the three dots on it and choose Delete.
- 3To remove everything at once, click Clear all at the top of the panel.
- 4For the same bulk clear from Settings, go to Settings, System, Clipboard, and use Clear clipboard data.
- 5To stop it recording anything from now on, switch Clipboard history off on that same Settings page.
Both bulk clears leave pinned items in place, which is the usual reason something survives a clear people expected to be total. Unpin it first, or delete it individually.
macOS
On macOS Tahoe or later, Spotlight has its own Clipboard history. Clear it there, then overwrite the current clipboard item if you also want to replace what a normal paste would insert. On older macOS versions, Finder can show the current item but there is no built-in history to clear.
- 1On macOS Tahoe or later, press Command-Space, then Command-4 to open Clipboard history in Spotlight.
- 2Click the More button beside the search field and choose Clear History.
- 3Copy harmless text if you also want to replace the item currently available to paste.
If Universal Clipboard is on, whatever you copied was also offered to your other Apple devices. Clearing the Mac does not clear those, so overwrite on each one that matters.
iPhone and iPad
iOS has no built-in clipboard history to clear. Copy a single character from Notes or any text field to replace the current item. If you use a separate clipboard app, clear its saved items inside that app.
Android
Because the browsable history belongs to your keyboard rather than to Android, you clear it in the keyboard.
- 1Open any app where you can type so the keyboard appears.
- 2Tap the clipboard icon in the toolbar above the keys.
- 3In Gboard, tap the edit or pencil icon, select the clips you want gone, and tap the bin.
- 4On the Samsung keyboard, open the clipboard panel and use Delete all, or remove items one at a time.
- 5As a blunt fallback, clearing the keyboard app's storage in Settings, Apps wipes the clipboard along with everything else it holds.
Google says unpinned Gboard history clears shortly after you last use it. Pinned items stay until you remove them, so those are the ones worth checking.
Your clipboard manager is the real archive
If you have installed a clipboard manager, it, not the operating system, is holding weeks of what you copied, and it is the thing worth clearing. Check whether deletion is local or propagates to your other devices, and whether clips were stored in plaintext on disk before you deleted them. In Clypy you can delete a single clip, select a range, or wipe the history entirely, and a deletion syncs to your paired devices rather than leaving copies behind.
What clearing does not cover
Clearing is cleanup after the fact, and several copies sit outside its reach. An app that already read the clip has its own copy. A remote-desktop or KVM session that mirrored the clipboard put it on the other machine. Sync leaves a copy on every device that received it. This is the argument for not capturing sensitive values at all. Clypy never stores a copy the system marks as concealed or one taken from a known password manager, so for those there is nothing to go back and clear. Content that merely looks like a key is still captured: it is concealed, kept out of search and AI indexes, and left out of backup exports, but it does reach your paired devices, so mark it local-only or add a per-app rule when it should stay on one machine.
Common questions
Does restarting clear clipboard history?
Windows clears unpinned items on restart. For macOS Tahoe or later, use Spotlight's Clipboard view and Clear History when you need to remove saved copies. On iPhone, copy something harmless to replace the current item. Android keyboard behavior varies by app.
How do I clear the clipboard on a Mac from the Terminal?
Run pbcopy < /dev/null. That pipes empty input into the pasteboard, leaving it blank rather than holding a stray character.
How do I stop Windows keeping clipboard history at all?
Open Settings, System, Clipboard and turn Clipboard history off. Windows then holds only the current item, the way it did before the feature existed.
Does clearing history on one device clear it on the others?
Only if the tool syncs deletions. Windows clipboard sync and Clypy both remove the clip from paired devices. Copies made by other apps or by a remote-desktop session are outside any of this.
Should I clear my clipboard after copying a password?
It is better than not doing it, and it is still a race: anything that read the clipboard in the meantime already has the value. Clypy never captures copies from known password managers, and conceals other secrets it detects. Those still sync to your paired devices unless you mark them local-only.
Official sources
Platform behavior changes over time. These primary references were used for the latest review.