Finally, a free app that syncs my clipboard across every device I own

I own a Windows laptop, an iPhone, and a MacBook. For most of my daily work, I use a MacBook. A small reason for that is how easy it is to use Apple devices together, including copy-pasting stuff between them. The Windows laptop is another story altogether. I have no qualms with the default Windows clipboard app, it does its job well; no notes. What I do have qualms with is the fact that I have to email copied text to myself when I want to paste stuff from my Windows machine to my MacBook, and vice versa.

To make my life easier, I tried out a cross-platform copy-paste app, and let’s just say I’m not going to email my clipboard to myself again.

CrossPaste syncs across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android

It’s completely free on desktop, but some features on Android and iOS require a pro subscription

My profession requires me to work across all major platforms, and CrossPaste supports all of them. The iOS app is still not live, but the app’s website says you can sign up for the TestFlight beta. Installation is pretty straightforward on all platforms: download the app from the respective app stores, use Homebrew on macOS, and download the package from the CrossPaste website for Linux. However, on macOS, you will need to manually provide accessibility permissions to CrossPaste for its hotkey functionality to work.

What I found really reassuring was that CrossPaste uses serverless-sync: your clipboard is synced over LAN, and not the web. This means that your devices need to be connected to the same network, but it’s a small price to pay for keeping your clipboard away from third-party servers. Additionally, all your data is end-to-end encrypted.

Setting up CrossPaste on your devices is quite simple because the app automatically scans your network for other devices running CrossPaste. In case your device doesn’t show up, there are ways to add it manually: click the settings cog, click on Devices -> Add Device Manually. You can also use the Pairing Code option to link your Android device by scanning the QR code on your computer.

Before you begin using CrossPaste, spend some time messing around in the settings because the app offers a surprising amount of personalization. The first thing I did was enable end-to-end encryption by going to Settings -> Network Settings –> Encrypted Sync. I also added Firefox to the Clipboard Source Control option in Settings -> Extension: it lets you blacklist certain apps so that anything you copy from them isn’t synced by CrossPaste. To make pasting faster, you can manually set up shortcut keys by going to Settings -> Shortcut Keys.

CrossPaste lets you paste more than just text

Each with a specific display style

I was pleasantly surprised with the pasteboards that CrossPaste supports. You can copy-paste plaintext, rich text, URLs, HTML, images, files, and colors: each pasteboard has a distinct style, making what you want easier to find. I frequently use it to seamlessly transfer screenshots between my Mac and Windows laptop, especially in combination with Greenshot, my screenshot app of choice, which automatically copies any screenshots I take to the clipboard.

Each clipboard item has a context menu that lets you do a bunch of different stuff. For instance, you can right-click on the clipboard item and sync it to a specific device, ignoring other connected devices. Additionally, you can click Edit and make changes to a link or text within CrossPaste itself, before pasting it. Text-based clipboard items are stored until a specific storage limit is reached (which you can modify). Images and files are stored for one week by default, but you can manually choose to store them for up to one year. You can modify these settings by going to Settings -> Storage Settings.

CrossPaste has rudimentary, though useful sorting and search features. Simply type in the filename or content of what you’re looking for in the search bar. You can also sort clipboard items by date or type to quickly find what you’re looking for. The app has Optical Character Recognition (OCR), but you need to enable it using Settings -> Extension -> OCR Settings. You can use OCR to extract text from an image, but you can’t search for images by typing the text they contain, which is a big miss.

A great option for desktop devices on the same network

CrossPaste works over LAN, which means your devices need to be connected to the same network for it to work. So, it won’t really work if you copied something from your home computer and want to paste it while you’re at your office. Regardless, this trade-off means that your clipboard entries aren’t stored on third-party servers, and in most cases you will be copy-pasting stuff between computers while they’re on the same network, anyway. It would be an excellent option for mobile devices too, if it wasn’t for the fact that you require a paid subscription to enable even the most basic features on Android and iOS. A one-time fee is a much better option for such apps.