--- title: Clipboard Manager for Windows: Keep Everything You Copy | Relic description: Windows Clipboard History (Win+V) holds 25 items and clears when you restart. Relic is a clipboard manager for Windows that keeps your copies, searches them, and syncs them encrypted. canonical: https://relic.space/clipboard-manager-windows source: https://relic.space/llms.txt --- Windows # A clipboard manager for Windows that remembers everything Windows already keeps a short clipboard history. Press Win+V, click Turn on the first time, and your recent copies are there. Microsoft caps that list at 25 entries and clears it every time you restart, except the items you pin. Here is how to turn it on, what it will not do, and what a clipboard manager adds on Windows. ## How to turn on Windows clipboard history Clipboard history ships with Windows 10 and Windows 11 and is off until you switch it on. Three steps: 1. **Press Win+V.** The clipboard panel opens next to your cursor. 2. **Click Turn on.** Microsoft’s instruction is “select Windows logo key + V, and then select Turn on”. You only do this once. You can also switch it on under **Settings > System > Clipboard**. 3. **Copy a few things, then press Win+V again.** Click an item to paste it where your cursor is, or click the pin on an item you reuse. Four limits are worth knowing before you rely on it. All of them come from [Microsoft’s clipboard page](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-the-clipboard-30375039-ce71-9fe4-5b30-21b7aab6b13f): * **25 entries.** “Your clipboard history is limited to 25 copied entries.” Copy a 26th and the oldest falls off. * **4 MB per item.** Text, HTML and bitmap are the formats it holds. * **Cleared on restart.** “Clipboard history gets cleared each time you restart your PC, except for the items you’ve pinned.” * **Sync is a separate switch.** On Windows 11 it is called **Clipboard history across your devices** and Microsoft says it is tied to your Microsoft account or your work account. Windows 10 calls the same switch **Sync across devices**. It carries the clipboard to your other Windows PCs. ## What Win+V will not do The panel has no search box, so you scroll. Nothing older than your last 25 copies is in it. Nothing you copied on your phone is in it either. And a reboot takes the whole list with it unless you remembered to pin. Win+V is built for “paste the thing from a minute ago”. It was never built for “find the license key I copied last month”. ## How to install Relic on Windows Relic is a clipboard manager. It runs in the background, keeps what you copy, and lets you search it. One line installs it: PowerShell winget install relic The installer works too, from the buttons below. Either way Relic installs into your own user account, so Windows never asks for an administrator, and you get a Start menu shortcut. * **Where it lives.** Relic has no taskbar window. It sits in the notification area beside the clock. Left-click the icon to open the window, right-click it for the menu. It starts with Windows and comes up hidden. * **The keys.** **Ctrl+Shift+Q** opens the window. **Ctrl+Shift+Space** opens a small picker where you are typing. **Ctrl+Shift+1** to **Ctrl+Shift+5** paste your five most recent items without opening anything. * **The command.** The installer puts a `relic` command in a folder beside the app and adds it to your PATH, so a script or an agent in your terminal can reach the same vault. * **Your data.** Everything Relic keeps on this PC lives in `%APPDATA%\relic`. The key to your vault sits in Windows Credential Manager. ![The Relic window: a search field above a list of recently copied items, each with a title, a preview and the device it came from.](https://relic.space/shots/desktop-popup.png) The Relic window. Search at the top, your copies underneath, newest first. [Relic on Windows](https://relic.space/help/windows) covers the tray menu, changing a shortcut, updates and the log file. Get Relic for Windows, free Keep what you copy, search it in a second, and carry it to your other computers and your phone. Every item is sealed on your PC before it is stored or synced. The free plan holds 250 MB and 100 saved items across 3 devices. [Download forWindows](https://relic.space/download/windows)[Download formacOS](https://relic.space/download/macos)[Download forLinux](https://relic.space/download/linux)[Download forAndroid](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=relic.space.app&referrer=utm%5Fsource%3Drelic.space%26utm%5Fmedium%3Dwebsite%26utm%5Fcampaign%3Dcontent)[Download foriPhone](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/relic-clipboard-vault/id6800556025) ## Win+V and Relic side by side | | Relic free | Relic Pro | Win+V | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------- | ------------------ | | Built into Windows | No | No | Yes | | Automatic background capture | Yes | Yes | Yes | | How many copies it keeps | The last 500, plus 100 you save | As many as you want | 25 | | Largest single item | 10 MB | 100 MB | 4 MB | | What it holds | Text, images, files | Text, images, files | Text, HTML, bitmap | | Survives a restart | Yes | Yes | pinned items only | | Search your history | Yes | Yes | No | | Reads text in screenshots | Yes | Yes | No | | On your phone as well | Yes | Yes | No | | End-to-end encrypted | Yes | Yes | not documented | The free plan is a real plan with real numbers: 250 MB of storage, 10 MB for any single item, the last 500 copies, 100 items you save on purpose, and 3 devices. Copies past 500 are held back rather than deleted, and they come back on the next sync if you move to Pro. [Plans and limits](https://relic.space/help/plans-and-limits) has the whole grid. The two work fine together. Leave Win+V on for the last thing you copied, and let Relic be the memory underneath it. ## For scripts and agents: the relic command This is the part no built-in panel has. Open a new terminal after installing and your vault is scriptable: PowerShell relic status relic search "connection string" --limit 5 relic get --raw `relic status` tells you whether the app is installed and what is in the local vault. Search prints a uid for each hit, and `-q` prints only the uids so you can pipe them. `relic export .\shot.png` writes a picture or a file out of your vault. It reads and writes the same vault the app is using on this computer, with no account and no network of its own. [The relic command](https://relic.space/help/cli) has the full list. ## Which one should you use? If you only ever paste something from a minute ago on one PC, Win+V is already there and costs nothing. Turn it on. If you keep losing things, want to search what you copied last week, or want a copy from your desktop on your phone, that is the gap Relic fills. Windows 11 changes a few details of the built-in panel, and we cover those in [clipboard history on Windows 11](https://relic.space/clipboard-history-windows-11). If copy and paste itself has stopped working, see [copy and paste not working on Windows 11](https://relic.space/blog/copy-and-paste-not-working-windows-11). ## Frequently asked questions Does Windows have a clipboard history?+ Yes. It is called Clipboard history and you open it with Win+V. The first time you press it, Windows shows a Turn on button. After that the panel lists your recent copies and you click one to paste it. Microsoft's own page says the list is limited to 25 copied entries and gets cleared each time you restart your PC, except for the items you have pinned. How do I turn on clipboard history in Windows?+ Press Win+V and click Turn on. You can also switch it on under Settings, then System, then Clipboard. Both do the same thing. Why does my Windows clipboard history keep disappearing?+ Two reasons, both by design. The list holds 25 entries, so the oldest ones drop off as you copy new things. And Microsoft says clipboard history gets cleared each time you restart your PC, except for the items you have pinned. Pin the ones you reuse, or run a clipboard manager that keeps its history on disk. Is Windows clipboard history private?+ On the PC it sits in memory until you restart. If you switch on Clipboard history across your devices, Microsoft's page says the feature is tied to your Microsoft account or your work account. Relic works differently: every item is sealed on your PC before it is stored or synced, so the server holds bytes it cannot read. What is the best clipboard manager for Windows?+ It depends what you need. Ditto is the long-standing free favorite if you only use one PC and only want text. Relic is the one to pick if you want your copies searchable, kept on disk, readable inside screenshots, carried to your phone, and encrypted so only you can open them. ## Your next step Run `winget install relic`, or use the Windows button above. Then [the first five minutes](https://relic.space/help/first-run) shows what happens once it is running, and [Relic on Windows](https://relic.space/help/windows) covers the tray, the keys and the data folder. Both are readable without an account. Keep reading [What is a clipboard manager?the full guide](https://relic.space/clipboard-manager)[Clipboard history on Windows 11what is different in Win11](https://relic.space/clipboard-history-windows-11)[See clipboard history on WindowsWin+V, step by step](https://relic.space/how-to/see-clipboard-history-windows)[Windows clipboard history (Win+V) vs a clipboard manager25 items, cleared on restart](https://relic.space/win-v-vs-clipboard-manager)[Relic vs Dittothe Windows favorite, compared](https://relic.space/vs/ditto)[How to access clipboard historyWin+V and beyond](https://relic.space/blog/how-to-access-clipboard-history)[Copy and paste not working on Windows 11quick fixes](https://relic.space/blog/copy-and-paste-not-working-windows-11)[Online notepada browser scratchpad](https://relic.space/tools/online-notepad)[Private noteshare a secret safely](https://relic.space/tools/private-note)