How to copy and paste between an iPhone and an Android phone

Why neither phone can do it alone

Universal Clipboard needs every device signed into the same Apple Account, so it covers Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple Vision Pro and nothing else. Android's built-in options point at Windows instead: Phone Link shares the clipboard with a PC on supported phones, and Microsoft SwiftKey syncs text with Windows clipboard history. Neither has an iPhone side. Both phones also restrict which apps may read the clipboard, so anything that bridges them has to work within those rules on each side.

A web page: Chrome's Send to your devices

If what you want on the other phone is a page you are looking at, Chrome can send it, in either direction, as long as both phones have Chrome signed into the same Google Account.

1. 1On both phones, open Chrome and sign in with the same Google Account.
2. 2On the phone with the page open, tap Share. On Android, Share is in Chrome's ⋮ menu.
3. 3Tap Send to your devices, then pick the other phone.
4. 4The page opens in Chrome on the other phone, or arrives as a notification if Chrome is allowed to show them.

This sends the page you are on, not your clipboard. For a link inside another app, open it in Chrome first.

A bit of text: a note, or a chat with yourself

For an address, a code or a paragraph, the dependable free route is to paste it into something both phones already sync. A note in Google Keep, which has apps for iPhone and Android, works. So does a chat with yourself in a messaging app you use on both, such as Saved Messages in Telegram. It is manual, and for something you do once a week, that's the right amount of effort.

Photos and files

Moving a file is a different job from moving a clipboard, and it has better free answers. LocalSend is a free, open-source app for both phones that sends files and text to a nearby device over your Wi-Fi, with no account. Since late 2025, Quick Share on some Android phones can also send straight to an iPhone through AirDrop. Our guide to sending files between a phone and a computer covers both, and the steps are the same between two phones.

A shared clipboard with history, with Clypy

Clypy runs on iPhone and Android and keeps a history of what you save on each. With Clypy Pro, the two phones pair and sync that history with end-to-end encryption: directly over Wi-Fi when they share a network, and through a relay that cannot read your clips when they don't.

1. 1Install Clypy on the iPhone from the App Store and on the Android phone from Google Play.
2. 2On one phone, open Devices and tap Pair a device to show a pairing code. On the other, open the same screen and scan it. This exchanges the encryption keys between the two phones.
3. 3On the iPhone, add the Clypy keyboard in Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards, and turn on Allow Full Access so it can reach your synced clips. On Android, enable the Clypy keyboard when Clypy asks.
4. 4To send something from the Android phone, copy it, then switch to the Clypy keyboard or open Clypy. From the iPhone, copy it, then open Clypy, share it to Clypy, or switch to the Clypy keyboard.
5. 5On the other phone, tap the clip in the Clypy keyboard to paste it.

Phone to phone is the slowest pairing for any clipboard app, because a phone only receives while the app is open or during the system's background refresh, which neither iOS nor Android runs on a fixed schedule. If a clip hasn't arrived, open Clypy on that phone for a moment. Pairing, sync and both keyboards are part of Clypy Pro; local history on each phone is free.