It’s a place in Windows.
The clipboard is another one of the small but powerful little items that we often take for granted.
It’s such a simple thing, yet we never talk about what it is or why one would care.
We just use it. Constantly. Every single day.
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The clipboard
The clipboard is a hidden spot in Windows that holds something you’ve copied or cut—like text, pictures, or files—so you can paste it somewhere else. It only holds one thing at a time (unless you turn on clipboard history, which lets you see and reuse stuff you copied earlier).
The Clipboard
The clipboard isn’t so much a thing as it is a place. But place isn’t exactly accurate either.
The clipboard is where Windows remembers something — exactly one thing, by default — for you.
That’s all.
But as simple as it is, it’s extremely powerful.
Putting things in the clipboard
You place things into1 the clipboard using the copy or cut commands in various applications and in Windows itself.
- Copy makes a copy of whatever you’ve selected and places it in the clipboard.
- Cut copies your selection to the clipboard and then deletes your selection. It’s equivalent to copy followed by delete.
Great. But, once it’s in the clipboard, what then?
Using things in the clipboard
The opposite of copying something into the clipboard is to copy something out: the paste operation.
Paste copies whatever is in the clipboard and places it at the current cursor or selection location. The contents of the clipboard are unaffected. You can paste multiple times, for example, and each paste will be a paste of the same thing.
- Copy or cut puts things in the clipboard.
- Paste copies the contents of the clipboard into your selected destination.
Clipboard contents
The clipboard is available for many, many things.
You can select some text in a document using your mouse, then right-click it and select copy or cut. You can then click elsewhere in the same document, right-click, and select Paste to put the contents of the clipboard where you clicked.
Windows File Explorer uses the cut/copy/paste metaphor and the clipboard to allow you to move or copy files.
But the real power of the clipboard isn’t in simple file or text manipulation.
The clipboard works between applications
The real power of the clipboard is that it’s a Windows service provided to all applications choosing to use it.
Copy text from one application and paste it into another.
Copy a file in Windows Explorer and paste it into an email, where it becomes an attachment.
Copy a photo from a website and paste it into a graphics program to save or modify.
Copy a file from one disk drive and paste it to another to make a backup copy.
You get the idea.
But where is the clipboard?
It’s in Windows. That’s as close as we can get to answering the question.
Where the clipboard lives and how Windows keeps track of it is completely hidden within Windows itself. And we don’t need to know, as long as it works.
Most folks wondering where the clipboard is are looking to see what it currently holds.
Viewing the clipboard’s contents
Windows XP included a tool called “clipbrd.exe”, which displayed the current contents of the clipboard.
For some reason, Windows 7 and later versions don’t include this tool. There are a variety of different third-party clipboard viewers in the Microsoft Store and elsewhere, though, that provide the functionality and often more.
I don’t bother. If I forget what’s in the clipboard, I run Notepad and hit paste into an empty document. This is a very quick way to see what’s in it.
However, Windows 10 added a feature that makes most of this moot.
Clipboard history
Previously, without third-party tools or additions, the Windows clipboard could hold only one thing at a time.
Enable “Clipboard History” in Windows settings, and that limitation is removed. Kind of.
With this enabled, after you use the clipboard for “a while”, copying several different items to the clipboard, 
+V will bring up a list of things recently copied to the clipboard.
The topmost item shows the current contents of the clipboard.
You can:
- Close the Window (press ESC), and nothing will happen. This is how you can view the current contents of the clipboard.
- Click on one of the items, and it will be pasted into your current position. (Hence the use of +V, which is similar to normal paste: CTRL+V).
The clipboard still really holds only one thing, meaning that CTRL+V will paste only the most recent item from the clipboard, but clipboard history gives you access to much more.
Do this
Learn about and use the clipboard. Computers are really, really good at copying things, which is what the clipboard is all about. You’ll likely find that it will quickly become one of your most used actions.
It beats the heck out of retyping long, complicated text, for sure.
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Footnotes & References
1: Often you’ll hear “in” or “into” the clipboard as well as “on” or “onto” the clipboard. “In” is much more common, but “on” more accurately matches the physical clipboard metaphor. Both are correct.
I copied a file in windows explorer. When I tried to paste it into an email in Thunderbird, the paste command was greyed out.
@Robert
If you are trying to copy and paste a file into Thunderbird, it won’t work. There are two things you can do .
1. You can copy and paste text from a file into the body of an email, Or
2. You can attach a file to an email, either by clicking on the “Attach” button and browsing for the file, or you can a file from Windows Explorer to the email address area of the email.
Clipmate, which costs a liitle, allows multiple, short and long clips, automatic multiple pastes, works very well.
Leo, I disagree with your statement that “it might be nice” to have more than one clipboard — it’s absolutely essential! Once I settled on the awesome ArsClip utility and figured out how to use and customize it, there was no going back to a single buffer clipboard.
{copyrighted material removed}
Having both permanent clips (like your e-mail and postal addresses) and multiple recent text and non-text clips is a major time-saving convenience — I can’t live without it!
BTW, one other thing to know about effective clipboard use is the importance of mastering the Ctrl-X (cut), Ctrl-C (copy) and Ctrl-V (paste) keyboard shortcuts.
One of my friends was repeatedly using her mouse to go to the Edit menu for all clipboard operations before I showed her how much quicker the keystroke combinations worked…
Leo – I strongly suspect that there is more to “copying” to the clipboard. Is not the clipboard also a format-conversion program? For example, the way text is formatted in the various versions of Word (except maybe .docx) is wildly different from the formatting techniques in other programs. How is this magic trick accomplished? And do graphics get copied/pasted always at the same resolution and color depth from program to program?
10-Jan-2012
Along the same lines as Chuck Small’s question, it seems clipboard will only paste graphic images into a document as a “PNG” file. Is it possible to change the setting so it will paste as a jpg? It can be done with “Paste Special” from the edit menu, but is there a way to change the default?
10-Jan-2012
I have used another clipboard utility for storing multiple clips. This has become essential to my work day. MS Office has had multiple clips for some time too, though they are only valid within Office itself.
To S. Clark: in MS Office 2010 there is a Set Default Paste… dialog but nothing in there that allows you to set the format of the pasted image.
One word…Internote. A simple app that is similar to other multi-clipboard apps. Simple, yes. It also is quite powerful it you wish to delve deeper [even make back-ups]. I use it as a clipboard for all daily on-line adventures. Here’s Why.
Though it’s a Firefox application [I love FF apps], it’s open source that should work in any browser. Simply put, it’s a post-it note that “sticks” to any page. You can type or copy/past to it [text only, but no size limit] and stick it to a page of choice, or have follow you through an entire site, or even place all of them in a single location. It can be translucent, or be hidden [but be reminded so your wont forget it’s there]. Use many as needed, however you need. So simple, so easy, so reliable. A short leaning curve, and your up & running. It doesn’t get complicated, and excellent for users that want it keep it simple. For me simplicity is paramount.
I wonder why I never thought to ask that question.
One very important use of the clipboard is its relation to the mysterious PrintScreen|SysRq button on the keyboard. Yes, pressing that button takes a picture of the screen, but where does it go. Why, to the ‘clipboard’ of course. Then you can ‘Paste’ the image in any application that will accept it, such as MS Word.