Universal Clipboard: Copy on iPhone, Paste on Mac (and Vice Versa)

Universal Clipboard is one of those features that sounds almost too convenient to be real — but it works. When you copy something on your iPhone, it becomes available to paste on your nearby Mac within a few seconds. The same works in reverse: copy text or an image on your Mac. And you can paste it on your iPhone.

This is useful in many everyday situations. Say you receive a verification code in a text message on your iPhone. You can copy it there and paste it directly into a website on your Mac. Or you might want to copy a long email address from your Mac and paste it into a form on your iPhone. Without Universal Clipboard, you would have to retype it or email it to yourself.

Universal Clipboard is part of Apple's "Continuity" features — a group of tools designed to make your Apple devices work together smoothly. It requires all devices to be signed in to the same iCloud (Apple ID) account, to have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on, and to be within about 30 feet of each other.

The clipboard content is available for a short window — about two minutes after you copy something. After that, the cross-device access expires and each device returns to its own clipboard. This is a security feature to prevent old copied data from accidentally appearing on another device later.

Universal Clipboard works with text, images, photos, and even some file types. It has been available since iOS 10 and macOS Sierra (2016).