Your iPhone’s clipboard can only hold one item at a time, so it may seem impossible to recover your entire history of copied text, images, and other content. Fortunately, there is a workaround you can use to find and copy the contents of your past clipboard, but you need to implement it first.
While there’s no built-in way to view more than one item on the iPhone’s clipboard, you can record and retrieve anything you’ve copied from now on. That way, you have a record of everything in case you need to back up something important.
There are third-party apps like Clipboard, Clipboard++, Clipboard – Paste Anywhere, Copypasta Keyboard, Paste – Clipboard Manager, and Paste Keyboard that will record what you copy to your clipboard. However, they are not a perfect solution.
Why should you avoid third-party Clipboard apps?
First, most third-party clipboard apps require an appropriate keyboard to find and select the contents of your clipboard history. It’s quite inconvenient and even confusing, especially if they don’t offer a regular input keyboard.
Second, you need to open the app or keyboard every time you copy content to your clipboard. If you don’t, it will only be able to record the last known contents of your clipboard, not everything since you last opened an app or keyboard.
Third, since iOS 16, all of these apps must ask for permission to paste the current contents of your clipboard from other apps into their app. This can get annoying quickly, but some more modern apps will display an “Install from other apps” menu (on iOS 16.1 and later) in the Settings app where you can always grant permission without security prompts.
Fourth, you could accidentally let any of these clipboard apps record sensitive information like passwords. You can have password manager apps like LastPass automatically empty your clipboard after about 30 seconds of copying a password, but not all apps can do this. Can you really trust the developers of these clipboard apps?
A better solution. custom built shortcut
You can create your own shortcut in the Shortcuts app to save the current clipboard entry in a variety of ways. Each whiteboard post can be saved in a separate post or file named with the current date and time. Or you can add each record to the same record or file, specifying the dates and times attributed to each record.
Whatever you create your shortcut for, you can assign it to Back Tap. That way, when you want to save something you’ve just copied, just double- or triple-tap the back of your iPhone right after. After a while, you’ll forget you’re even doing it.
With your own shortcut, you don’t have to use a funny keyboard or open another app when you copy something, you can save clipboard history locally on your iPhone or iCloud, and you have full control over what’s saved.
Step 1: Download the shortcut
To save you some time, I created a simple shortcut that you can install. Tap the shortcut link, then select Configure Shortcut when the preview opens in Shortcuts to set your preferences.
Step 2: Select a Storage Method
Now choose which method you want to use to save your clipboard history. Delete others from the list, then click the Next button.
Text and media will be saved if you select the Notes app. Only text will be saved if you select the Files app, and any media will be recorded as their filenames.
If you want to save media to Files, feel free to play around with the shortcut workflow to save it as specific file types depending on what’s on the clipboard. I was trying to slim down this shortcut to keep it simple.
Method 1: Separate notes
If you select Individual Notes, select a folder in the Notes app where you want to save each note. It will save to your default Notes directory if you don’t select anything. Click Next until you reach the final configuration page, then click Add Shortcut or Done to save the shortcut to your library.
To test it, go to the Shortcuts tab, then click the Save Clipboard History shortcut.
The first time you save text, images, or other media, it will ask you to grant shortcut save privileges, select “Always Allow.” You only need to do this once for each media type, so enabling it for text means that the prompt will no longer appear when there is any text on the clipboard.
Once the shortcut is launched, it will open directly to a new note in the Notes app. If you don’t want this to happen, go to the shortcut editor, click the arrow next to the name of the folder of your choice under the “Separate notes” if clause, then turn off “Open on startup.”
Method 2: 1 Note
If you select “1 Note”, specify notes in the application where you want to store each clipboard entry. If you don’t select anything, it will prompt you for a note every time you launch the shortcut. Click Next until you reach the final configuration page, then click Add Shortcut or Done to save the shortcut to your library.
To test it, go to the Shortcuts tab, then click the Save Clipboard History shortcut.
The first time you save text, images, or other media, it will ask you to grant shortcut save privileges, select “Always Allow.” You only need to do this once for each media type, so enabling it for text means that the prompt will no longer appear when there is any text on the clipboard.
Each time the shortcut runs, you’ll get a notification that it’s done. Whatever was on the clipboard will be saved to the note you selected. You can view the note at any time in the Notes app. Each entry will be preceded by the month, day, and year, followed by the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Method 3: Individual files
If you select Individual files, in the Files app, select a folder where you want to save each file. It will save to your default Shortcuts directory if you don’t select anything. Click Next until you reach the final configuration page, then click Add Shortcut or Done to save the shortcut to your library.
To test it, go to the Shortcuts tab, then click the Save Clipboard History shortcut.
The first time you save text, images, or other media, it will ask you to grant shortcut save privileges, select “Always Allow.” You only need to do this once for each media type, so enabling it for text means that the prompt will no longer appear when there is any text on the clipboard. However, keep in mind that content like photos will appear as their filenames, for example IMG9403.PNG.
Each time the shortcut runs, you’ll get a notification that it’s done. Whatever was on the clipboard will be saved as a new note in the directory of your choice. Each file will be named the month, day, and year, followed by the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Method 4: 1 file
If you select 1 file, in the Files app, select a folder where you want to save the clipboardhistory.txt file. If necessary, you can change the name of this .txt file in the shortcut editor. It will save to your default Shortcuts directory if you don’t select anything. Click Add Shortcut or Done to save the shortcut to your library.
To test it, go to the Shortcuts tab, then click the Save Clipboard History shortcut.
The first time you save text, images, or other media, it will ask you to grant shortcut save privileges, select “Always Allow.” You only need to do this once for each media type, so enabling it for text means that the prompt will no longer appear when there is any text on the clipboard. However, keep in mind that content like photos will appear as their filenames, for example IMG9403.PNG.
Each time the shortcut runs, you’ll get a notification that it’s done. Whatever was on the clipboard will be saved in the note you selected. If you don’t select a specific file, it may not work. Each entry will be preceded by the month, day, and year, followed by the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Step 3: Assign the shortcut back to the tap gesture
Back Tap is an iOS accessibility feature that allows you to quickly double or triple tap the Apple logo on the back of your iPhone to perform an assigned action. In our case, it will work the shortcut. Go to Settings –> Accessibility –> Touch –> Touch back, then select “Double tap” or “Triple tap”. Scroll to the Shortcuts section and select Save Clipboard History.
From now on, every time you double- or triple-tap the back of your iPhone, the shortcut should launch. You can do this right after you copy something to your clipboard. If it’s sensitive information that you don’t want to be recorded anywhere, you can simply not use the Back Tap gesture.
If you’re using Universal Clipboard to view clipboard content from your Mac or iPad, you can use the Back tap gesture after syncing to iPhone. It should still work.
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