El android clipboard It is one of the most used features in mobile phones that work with said operating system. That's quite natural, if we take into account that copying and pasting is one of the actions most used by mobile users, not just on PC. In this post we are going to see how we can access the clipboard of our Android mobile and some tricks to get the most out of it.
The action of copy and paste on Android smartphones does not always offer us the flexibility that we would like to have. The action itself is simple, and well known to everyone: you just have to select the text by holding the text by clicking on it and then go to the place where you want to paste it by clicking again. However, when we copy a piece of text, we must paste it before trying to copy or paste another. If we do not do it this way, we lose access to it. And not only that: if we also copy the text and it turns out that we turn off our phone before pasting it, the text is lost.
The reason for this is that Android smartphones store the copied text in RAM and not in the phone's memory. It is not very practical. Fortunately, this is where the Android clipboard comes into play. You just have to know how to access it and see the copied elements. Let's see how it's done:
Where is the clipboard located in the Android system?
The clipboard of our mobile phone is integrated into the operating system itself. Although it is possible to use it, we cannot change the information it contains, we can only use its basic copy, cut and paste functions.
In order to manage this "hidden" function of the system we have no choice but to use third-party applications. They will help us to access the clipboard of our Android mobile or they will allow us to create our own clipboard. Applications like Clipper or virtual keyboards for mobile like Gboard or Swiftkey can be good alternatives. These are their download links:
The great advantage that these applications offer us is the ability to save not just one, but several items on your clipboard. In addition to that, we will be able to view them and thus we will be able to copy the texts that we want to use or save.
Some of these applications also allow us to synchronize the content of the clipboard on different devices, as long as we have downloaded and installed the app in question on them. Other interesting functions are search conversion, filtering of telephone numbers or generation of QR codes with the copied text. Very practical.
Manage the Gboard clipboard
Next we will explain how to manage our Android clipboard using one of the apps mentioned in the previous section. We will give the most popular of them as an example: gboard. Once downloaded using the link above and installed on our device, this is what we must do:
Virtual keyboard settings
To start taking advantage of Gboard and your clipboard, the first thing to do is set up the app. Generally, it is the app itself that guides us through this process right after installing it. If this is not the case, we will do the following:
- In the menu of Settings from the phone, let's System.
- There we select «Languages and input» and then we're going to "Virtual keyboard".
- Next, we select "Gboard".
- Finally, we chose Gboard as the default keyboard.
After completing these configuration steps, we will be able to use the Gboard clipboard and all its functions, which will be much more practical than using the Android clipboard.
Access Gboard clipboard
To access the Gboard clipboard we first have to open an app where there is text that we can copy and paste: Notes, WhatsApp, Gmail, etc. Most likely, the Gboard icon will appear in the menu itself, without us having to do anything. If not, we go to the three points at the top right of the screen, so that the list with the hidden icons is displayed.
Initially, Gboard's clipboard function is disabled. To activate it, you just have to slide activation button that we find in the application menu. Doing so will automatically load some default items that also contain handy instructions for use.
Copy and paste
The copy and paste functions on the Gboard clipboard are executed exactly the same as in any other area: selecting the text and pressing it for a few seconds to bring up the option we want to use. The difference is that we can copy and save an unlimited number of texts; later, when pasting them, we can select them from the panel itself.
Clear Clipboard
Using this system it is possible that we end up accumulating a lot of text fragments. To prevent confusions, It is convenient to eliminate those that have become obsolete and those that we will no longer need. The deletion can be done individually, by clicking on the elements one by one, or in a massive way, deleting all the contents of the clipboard.