Copy and Paste Between Your Macs and Other Apple Devices

With macOS's built-in Universal Clipboard feature you can copy and paste between two Macs, or between Macs, iPhones and iPads. You can use this for text, images, files and more.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Did you know you can easily Copy and Paste between your Apple devices. Even if you did, let me show you some ways to use it you may not know about. 
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Now you can Copy on one Apple device, say a Mac, and then Paste on another, say another Mac or an iPhone or an iPad. You can do this pretty easily. As a matter of fact you probably already have it enabled. This is called the Universal Clipboard. You can read more about it here and it also shows you the requirements. Obviously, you should be using one of the more recent versions of macOS. You should be signed on using the same Apple ID on both devices. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi should both be turned on even if you're not using them on the devices. There's a feature called Handoff that is enabling this and you should have that turned on. You probably have that already so you can probably already do this. 
So let me show you how it works. There's really nothing special to do at all. You can select some text, just anywhere you would normally select text. This is on my Mac Studio here and I'm just going to use Edit, Copy or I could just do Command C. Then here on my MacBook Air I can be in another app where you would normally Paste text and I can use Edit, Paste or just Command V.
Now there are some rules around this. The Clipboard only lasts on the other Mac or device for about 1-2 minutes. So it doesn't stay there forever. Something you Copy now isn't going to be there an hour from now. It's kind of a temporary thing. Also, of course, anytime you copy something else on that other device it's going to replace it. Just like it would normally for the Clipboard. So it is built to Copy and then pretty much immediately Paste on the other device. 
The same thing works with other Apple devices as well. So here, for instance, I have an iPhone. I'm going to Command C to Copy here from Pages on my Mac. Then in Notes on my iPhone I'm going to click and Paste and you can see its actually going to ask for permission. I'll allow it and I just pasted that text there. Now I can select something here. Copy it and then on my Mac I can Paste. 
Now you can do more than just Copy text. For instance here I am in the Photos App on one Mac. I'm going to select a photo here. I'm going to go to Edit, Copy or Command C, and then on this Mac I'm in the Mail App. I'm composing a message and I Command V and it's going to Paste that image into my email message. The same would even work for videos. I can select this video here. Copy and then on the other Mac I could Paste and it's going to paste that video in. You can do it with Image Selections as well. So I'm in Preview here on this Mac. I'm going to select an area. I'm going to Command C and Copy. Then on this Mac here I'm in Pixelmator Pro and I'm going to Command V to Paste. It's going to paste that selected part of the image into that different app on a different Mac. 
Now here's probably the most powerful example. You can use this as a way to share files. You probably know you can share files with old-fashioned network file sharing. You could also, of course, use iCloud Drive since both of these Macs are using the same Apple ID. You could use AirDrop. But another way to do it is to Copy and Paste a file. So I could say select this file here on one Mac and Copy it and you know I could go to another directory on this Mac and Paste it in and it would make a copy of that file. But I can now do this on the other Mac. So the other Mac here I'm just going to do Command V to Paste and it is going to paste a copy of that file there. It even works with multiple files at least in a lot of cases. So, for instance, I can select these two files here. Command C to Copy and then Command V over here to Paste. It will paste both of them.
Now there are a lot of places where it doesn't work. For instance if you try to copy a section from GarageBand or iMovie and you try to paste it into the same app on a different Mac or iPhone or iPad it is not going to work. Those are usually referencing other parts of other files and things like that. But it does work in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for elements inside a document. So, for instance, here in Pages I'm going to select the text box, the shape, and this image here. I'm going to Copy. Then in Pages over here on this other Mac I'm going to Paste and all those elements will come through. In Keynote you can do the same thing. I'm going to select some text, a shape, even a chart. Copy over here and then Paste over here and all those elements come through. What's even more interesting is you can select slides, copy those slides, and then go to this document and can paste. It will paste the entire slide into that other document on that other Mac. You can do it in Numbers as well. Copying different elements or even copying cells. Let me copy a bunch of cells like this. Then I'm going to go over here and paste the values for those cells. 
So here's a handy tip. You can actually view the contents of the Clipboard if you're in the Finder. The Finder has a special window under Edit, Show Clipboard, that shows the contents of the Clipboard. Here are those cells that I copied before. Now if I were to Copy something on this other Mac here, like the text here on this webpage, it's not going to show up right away. But I do notice that if you click away from the window and then back into it then you'll see it. It seems that Universal Clipboard doesn't activate automatically. You have to actually do a Paste or some other action, like for instance clicking away and clicking back in and you can see the contents. So if you copied from one Mac, or maybe your iPhone or iPad, and want to Paste in and you want to check the contents first this is a handy way to do it.
Once you start using Universal Clipboard you'll find all sorts of uses for it. Copying a URL from one web browser from one device to another one on another device. Copying a text message on your iPhone and pasting it into a document you're working on on your Mac. There are lots of different ways you can use it. The big catch though is sometimes it doesn't work. Now this has gotten a lot better over the years. This feature has been around for a few years and at the beginning a lot of people reported not being able to get it to work despite seeming to have the settings correct. That's gotten less and less but you still hear people that think that they've got everything setup perfectly and yet it is still not working. If that happens maybe try doing a Restart. Try toggling On and Off the different settings. But if you're still having trouble and you really need this feature to work for you then the next step is to contact Apple Support. 
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 11 Responses to “Copy and Paste Between Your Macs and Other Apple Devices”

John Merrill

2 years ago

Didn't know you could do universal control with an iPhone.

Gary Rosenzweig

John: You can't. It is between Macs, or Macs and an iPad. Universal Control is using a mouse/trackpad and a keyboard across devices. This video is just about copy and paste. It is "Universal Clipboard" not "Universal Control."

Okay, so I guess I do not know how to do copy and paste from my Mac to my iPhone. Thanks for the clarification.

Zaph Mann

It works as described! thanks - quite a time saver

Cristian

Hei, Gary, Do you know how to disable the recurring permission request to allow paste?

Cristian: No, there's no way to disable them. At least not in 16.0.

charlie

You have two devices on one screen at 01:20 in video. Can you share how this is done?
Thanks

Charlie: I just screen recorded both while demonstrating then imported the into my video editor and arranged them while editing.

1 year ago

I just upgraded to ventura and despite all the settings being 'on' (I've double checked) this isn't working anymore

Zaph: Have you tried restarts? If you still can't get it working and need it, the next step would be to contact Apple Support.

You were correct- restart fixed it

Comments Closed.

Copy and Paste Between Your Macs and Other Apple Devices

Comments: 11 Responses to “Copy and Paste Between Your Macs and Other Apple Devices”

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