How to Clear the Clipboard on Windows 10 to Protect Your Password History
Did you know that when you copy something in Windows and paste it somewhere else, the info on your Clipboard doesn't just disappear? It can remain stored on your Clipboard for anyone to see. If you want to make sure all of your data is safe and secure you need to clear your Clipboard history too.
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What is Clipboard History?
The Clipboard is a temporary storage place for information when you are copying and pasting data. In older versions of Windows, you could not keep a record of what you copied, everything was deleted up until the latest entry. This is not the case now.
An update in October 2018 gave Windows 10 users the option to keep a history of items and text they had copied. You can go back and paste an item more than once or pin items that you paste often to the panel so that you wouldn't delete them by accident.
To check whether your computer has Clipboard history enabled you only need to press Win + V while in any program. If the option is not enabled then your machine is only saving one item at a time. If you wish to activate the Clipboard history option you can do so by clicking the enable button. The ability to save a history of your copied items has a lot of pros, sure, but what about the cons?
First of all, storing large amounts of data on the Clipboard reduces the amount of memory available. A full Clipboard can noticeably slow down your machine. Also, if you are on someone else's computer, you definitely don't want to leave your Clipboard items where the owner can see them, even if the owner is a friend or family member. The same goes if you let someone else use your PC. They would have access to whatever is saved on your Clipboard. It's better if they don't have access to your private data, especially if it's sensitive. Finally, if you copied and pasted a password, anyone using your computer would be able to see it.
How to delete your Clipboard history
If you're concerned about any of these issues, you can erase this data. There are several options and I will go through all of them in this article.
Method 1: Add an empty field to Clipboard History
In the first option, we will add an empty item to the clipboard history so that you (or someone on your computer) will not be able to paste anything. This method does not delete the entire history, but it does make it impossible for someone to access your last pasted item. Here's how to do it:
- Press the Win + R keys to open the Run box.
- Enter cmd /c "echo off | clip"
- Press OK.
Method 2: Clear All Clipboard History
You must use the Clipboard settings menu to clear all the entries on your Clipboard. Here's what to do:
- Enter "Clipboard" in the search field.
- Click the Clipboard settings icon.
- Scroll to the bottom of the window and press Clear.
Method 3: Erase specific entries
If you want to you can delete only certain sensitive data instead of clearing the entire Clipboard history. To do so, you can use the Clipboard panel.
- Press Win + V.
- Press the three dots in the upper-right corner of the item you want to delete.
- Click Delete.
- Additionally, you can delete the full history from this panel by clicking on "Clear all".
Method 4: Disable Clipboard history
If you don't need the Clipboard history feature, or you just don't want to worry about someone else accessing you can turn the option off entirely. Simply open Clipboard history and toggle it off.
