How do you copy and paste on Android?
There is no Ctrl+C on a phone. Press and hold a word until it highlights, drag the blue handles over the rest, then tap Copy. Move to the field you want it in, press and hold in the empty space, and tap Paste. Your recent copies also sit in the clipboard inside your keyboard.
On a phone there is no Ctrl+C to lean on, so copying works by touch. The core move is the same in nearly every Android app: press and hold the text you want, adjust the selection, then tap Copy. Paste it somewhere else by pressing and holding in an empty field and tapping Paste. That single pattern covers messages, browsers, notes and email, whether you are on a Samsung, Pixel, Motorola or anything else running Android.
The gesture itself is easy. The confusion lives in everything around it: selecting the right amount of text, finding the keyboard clipboard, and working out why nothing is older than your last copy. We will take each in turn.
How to copy text
Press and hold one word until it highlights and two blue handles appear at either end. Drag those handles to stretch the selection over exactly what you want, a phrase, a sentence, or a whole paragraph. A small toolbar pops up above the selection with Copy, Cut, Select all and usually Share. Tap Copy, and the text is now in memory, ready to drop elsewhere.
A few useful details. To grab everything in a field at once, tap Select all instead of dragging. In a web page, the same press and hold works, though some sites fight the selection, in which case reader mode or sharing the page often gets you the text more cleanly.
How to paste
Go to wherever you want the text, a message box, a search bar, a note, and press and hold in the empty space. A small Paste button appears. Tap it and your copied text drops in. If you instead see your keyboard with no Paste option, just press and hold again for a moment longer until the button shows up. A short single tap places the cursor without offering Paste, which is the most common reason people think pasting is broken.
How do you copy a link or an image on Android?
Links are the easiest thing to copy on a phone. Press and hold a link in a browser or a message and choose Copy link or Copy link address. To copy the address of the page you are currently on, tap the address bar so the full URL highlights, then tap Copy. From there you can paste it into a chat, a note or an email.
Images are a little different. Inside apps like Chrome, Google Docs or Gmail you can often press and hold an image and choose Copy image, then paste it into a message or document that accepts pictures. Plenty of apps only let you save or share an image rather than copy it, so if Copy is missing, Share is usually the way through.
Where does Android keep what you copied?
Android has no clipboard app you can open from the home screen. The thing you copied sits in a hidden slice of memory, and the place to actually see it is your keyboard. If you have ever wondered what the clipboard is and where it hides, on a phone the answer is: in memory, surfaced through whichever keyboard you type with.
Gboard
Google’s Gboard, the default on Pixel and many other phones, has a clipboard. Open the keyboard, tap the clipboard icon in the top row (it looks like a clipboard), and you will see recent copies as small cards. Tap one to paste it. You can pin items you want to keep, since Google says Gboard otherwise clears the clipboard shortly after you last use it.
Samsung Keyboard
Samsung Galaxy phones keep their clipboard in Samsung Keyboard. It’s a short list too. We show how to open it and pin clips in the Samsung section below.
How do you copy and paste on a Samsung phone?
Press and hold the text until it highlights. Drag the handles over what you want and tap Copy. To paste, press and hold in the empty field and tap Paste. Galaxy phones work like any other Android phone here. They also add a few extras of their own.
Paste older copies from Samsung Keyboard
Samsung Keyboard keeps a list of the things you copied lately. Tap into any text box so the keyboard opens. Then tap the clipboardbutton in the toolbar above the keys. If you can’t see it, tap the three dots at the right end of the toolbar and choose Clipboard. Tap any clip to paste it.
Pin the clips you reuse
The list is short, so older clips drop off as you copy new things. To keep one, press and hold it in the clipboard and pin it. The same press and hold lets you delete a clip.
Copy text from a photo or screenshot
Open the picture in the Gallery app. Screenshots live there too. Tap the yellow T button in the bottom right corner, and Samsung says the text in the photo gets highlighted. Select the part you want and copy it like normal text.
To grab text from any screen, newer Galaxy phones have a Galaxy AI tool called AI select. Swipe open the Edge panel and tap AI select, or open it from the S Pen menu. Mark the part of the screen you want and tap Extract text. The words go straight to your clipboard.
Copy between two Galaxy devices
You can copy on a Galaxy phone and paste on a Galaxy tablet. Both need the same Samsung account, the same Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. Then open Settings, tap Connected devices, and turn on Continue apps on other devices on both. Samsung’s clipboard sharing guide has the full list of steps.
Copy between a Galaxy phone and a Windows PC
Galaxy phones come with Link to Windows. It pairs with the Phone Link app on a Windows 10 or 11 PC. On the phone, open Settings, tap Connected devices, and turn on Link to Windows. On the PC, open Phone Link, choose Android, and scan the QR code with your phone. Samsung walks through the pairing if you get stuck.
Once they’re paired, open Phone Link on the PC and go to Settings, then Features. Turn on Cross-device copy and paste. Now you can copy on one and paste on the other with the usual gestures and shortcuts. Microsoft says it handles text and pictures only, and pictures over 1 MB get shrunk. Phone Link only runs on Windows. If you use a Mac, see our guide to copying between a phone and a computer.
For more on where the Samsung clipboard lives and how much it keeps, see our Samsung clipboard guide.
Why can’t you see anything older than your last copy?
By default Android keeps only your most recent copy in that single hidden slot, the keyboard clipboards stretch it to a short self-expiring list, and our guide to accessing your clipboard history maps out what each device can and cannot recover.
If you would rather your copies stuck around, you can keep a permanent clipboard history on Android, where everything you copy stays searchable on your phone and computer instead of clearing itself soon after you use it.
Clearing what you copied
To clear a single clip, open your keyboard clipboard, press and hold the item, and delete it. To clear the lot, most keyboard clipboards have a delete-all or edit option in the same panel. Doing this now and then is good hygiene, especially after copying a password or a verification code, since whatever sits on the clipboard can be pasted by anything you tap into next.
The same idea on every device
Android leans on touch, but the concept is identical everywhere: select, copy, move, paste. If you switch between a phone and a computer, it helps to see the whole map at once, which is what our pillar guide to copying and pasting on any device lays out. The gestures differ across an iPhone and a Chromebook, but the muscle memory carries over once you have it.
Sources
- Copy & paste sections of text with Gboard, Gboard Help
- Share the clipboard to copy and paste across Galaxy devices, Samsung Support
- Copy and paste, Android Developers
- How to extract text from a photo?, Samsung Support
- Screen capture with AI select on Galaxy phones or tablets, Samsung Support
- Samsung multi-device experience with Galaxy S25, Samsung Support
- Seamlessly transfer content between your devices, Microsoft Support