Windows 11’s mobile devices section has become interesting after introducing actually helpful features that you need. Microsoft is now testing a clipboard sync feature that brings Windows 11’s clipboard content to Android, but only when you’re using the same Microsoft account.
Windows Latest spotted the toggle “Access PC’s clipboard” in a preview build last month, but it quietly disappeared before we could use it, which suggested Microsoft was testing it. Now, we noticed that the toggle has reappeared in a Dev build on one of the test machines, and I wanted to see it in action.
As long as you have the mobile devices set up and the Link to Windows app installed on your phone, you don’t need to do much. Just pick a recent preview build, and the feature will show up on your PC.
Firstly, I enabled the feature titled “Access PC’s clipboard” in the mobile devices section. Next, I enabled the Clipboard history setting and also enabled the sync feature so the copied text actually syncs to the phone. I didn’t need to do anything on the phone to set up this new feature.
Next, I copied a chunk of text from a webpage, and the text immediately appeared in my Gboard keyboard on my Android phone. I tried it a bunch of times, and the sync was instantaneous. In our tests, Windows Latest noticed that the clipboard sync is not limited to any specific keyboard app. It works with the Samsung keyboard too.
As far as the use case is concerned, my best guess would be that for immediate things like complex passwords, codes, or long chunks of text that you would otherwise have to email yourself, are now available on your clipboard.
If you want to send something to a contact on a phone app from the PC or use it, the clipboard sync immediately sends it to the phone.
However, a Microsoft app that packs the same capabilities has been there for a few years, and I was itching to give it a try.
SwiftKey isn’t as swift as I expected
I disabled the mobile devices section’s clipboard sync feature and installed the SwiftKey app on the phone. Being a Microsoft app, it doesn’t need a companion app on the PC. As long as you enable clipboard history and sync on your Windows 11 PC and the phone app, it should work fine.
However, it was a sour experience as the sync refused to work at all. I tried everything, including the manual app sync using the SwiftKey app settings, but nothing changed. I also found several forum complaints citing the sync issues with SwiftKey, and some even posted a couple of months back.
Since G-board is the default keyboard on Android and can now sync the clipboard history, I wouldn’t bother using SwiftKey again. The usual troubleshooting methods didn’t fix the sync for me, so I would prefer the native option instead, whenever it rolls out to the stable channel.
The post Hands on: Windows 11 has a hidden native clipboard sync for Android, also works with Gboard appeared first on Windows Latest
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