{"id":8356,"date":"2022-06-01T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T21:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=9201"},"modified":"2022-07-01T15:46:47","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T20:46:47","slug":"copy-and-paste-between-your-apple-devices-with-universal-clipboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/copy-and-paste-between-your-apple-devices-with-universal-clipboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Copy and Paste between Your Apple Devices with Universal Clipboard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone is accustomed to using the Copy and Paste commands on the Mac, but fewer people know that you can also copy and paste between your Mac and your iPhone and iPad. Apple calls this feature Universal Clipboard, and it\u2019s so deeply integrated into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS that it can be easy to miss. You won\u2019t find a switch for Universal Clipboard or any other mention of it in System Preferences or Settings.<\/p>\n<p>To use Universal Clipboard, all you have to do is copy some content\u2014a bit of text, an image, a video\u2014on one device, switch to another device, and paste it into an app that can accept the copied content. It\u2019s a great way to move data between your devices. (When going from Mac to Mac, you can also copy and paste entire files in the Finder.)<\/p>\n<p>Or at least there\u2019s no fuss if you have the right settings enabled on all your devices\u2014miss even one of these and Universal Clipboard won\u2019t work. Here are the necessary supporting conditions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Apple ID:<\/b> Each device must be signed in to iCloud using the same Apple ID. Ensure this is the case in System Preferences &gt; Apple ID on the Mac and in Settings &gt; <i>Your Name<\/i> on the iPhone and iPad.<\/li>\n<li><b>Bluetooth:<\/b> Each device must have Bluetooth turned on. On the Mac, look in System Preferences &gt; Bluetooth (or Control Center, or the Bluetooth menu); on an iPhone or iPad, check Settings &gt; Bluetooth (or Control Center).<\/li>\n<li><b>Wi-Fi:<\/b> Each device must have Wi-Fi turned on and connected to the same Wi-Fi network. It\u2019s unlikely this wouldn\u2019t be the case, but you can verify it in System Preferences &gt; Wi-Fi (or Control Center, or the Wi-Fi menu); on an iPhone or iPad, check Settings &gt; Wi-Fi (or Control Center).<\/li>\n<li><b>Handoff:<\/b> Each device must have Handoff enabled. Check that on the Mac in System Preferences &gt; General and on an iPhone or iPad in Settings &gt; General &gt; AirPlay &amp; Handoff. There\u2019s almost no reason to disable Handoff, so it should be on.<\/li>\n<li><b>Recent devices:<\/b> Your devices must be relatively recent\u2014from the last 7\u201310 years\u2014and running at least macOS 10.12 Sierra or iOS 10. In other words, don\u2019t expect Universal Clipboard to work on some ancient MacBook or iPad.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If those settings are all correct, but Universal Clipboard still isn\u2019t working, restart your devices and verify that they all have Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity when they come back up.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time, however, Universal Clipboard just works. It normally transfers the data between devices almost instantly, although if you copy a particularly large image or video on one device and switch to another, you may see a progress dialog while it finishes moving the data. In the screenshot below, Universal Clipboard didn\u2019t even have time to calculate the time remaining before it finished pasting a photo.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9203\" src=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/copy-and-paste-between-your-apple-devices-with-universal-clipboard.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/copy-and-paste-between-your-apple-devices-with-universal-clipboard.png 510w, https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/copy-and-paste-between-your-apple-devices-with-universal-clipboard-1.png 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 510px, 100vw\"><\/p>\n<p>Remember that Universal Clipboard simply populates each device\u2019s clipboard just as though you had copied from that device. As soon as you copy something else on any device, it immediately replaces whatever came in from Universal Clipboard. Plus, if you copy something but don\u2019t paste it on another device right away, the clipboard on that device may revert to its previous contents after about 2 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>(Featured image by iStock.com\/voyata and Sielan)<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Social Media: Did you know that you can copy and paste content between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad using Universal Clipboard? It should just work, but if not, read on to learn which underlying settings you should adjust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone is accustomed to using the Copy and Paste commands on the Mac, but fewer people know that you can also copy and paste between your Mac and your iPhone and iPad. Apple calls this feature Universal Clipboard, and it\u2019s so deeply integrated into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS that it can be easy to miss. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,880,8,25,112,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-ipad","category-iphone","category-mac","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8374,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356\/revisions\/8374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}