by One feature that Android enthusiasts may envy Apple device users is the universal clipboard accessible from the cloud. This option allows you to copy and paste text from and to any device as long as it is logged into the Apple account. In a few seconds, you can copy content from macOS to paste it on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch for example.
It’s very convenient, and we would love to be able to do the same on Android. Google continues to improve its ecosystem, but still has work to do in this area. It is also penalized by the fact that it does not have control over the entire environment in which its users find themselves, since many owners of an Android smartphone have a Windows PC and not Chrome OS.
Therefore, in order to share your live clipboard from one device to another, it is mandatory for now to go through the Chrome browser. Note that the functionality is not yet completely stable and officially available to everyone. But it is easy to activate it.
Chrome: How to copy text from pc to android devices
- First and foremost, you need to make sure you’re using a recent version of Chrome. Open the menu by clicking on the three vertically arranged dots at the top right of the browser and enter Settings. Then go to Help> About Google Chrome to check the version installed on your device and download the latest stable update available.
- Also make sure that you are signed in to the same Google account on the smartphone (or tablet) and on the PC.
-
Then go for a walk in Settings> Google and you> Google services / Synchronization on both devices to check that the account information synchronization options are activated.
- As explained previously, clipboard sharing is not a stable feature and therefore is not available from Settings. You will need to make it available from a special menu that you can access by entering the chrome: // flags command in the URL bar of the browser.
- Dans la barre de recherche « Search Flags », tapez « clipboard ». Dans l’onglet « Available », s’affichent trois flags : « Enables the remote copy feature to receive messages », « Enable shared clipboard feature signals to be handled » et « Raw Clipboard ». Activez-les tous en sélectionnant « Enabled » à la place de « Default ».
-
Now restart Chrome.
- You can now select text with the mouse and right click to open the context menu. You should now have a new option: “Copy to [Name of your phone]”. Left click on it.
-
On your smartphone, you receive a “Text shared by [Name of your computer] / Copied to clipboard” notification.
-
You can then paste the text copied from your computer wherever you want on your mobile. Just do as usual: long press on the screen and “Paste”. Chrome acts as a go-between, but you can paste the text into any app.
And now, ! Before we leave, we want to tell you that this feature is not only available on Chrome, but also on browsers using the Chromium rendering engine. You only need to be logged into your Google account with this third-party browser, otherwise the operation is the same (you must also activate the flags). We have successfully performed the test on Vivaldi for example.
