The fast answer: press Win+V, click the three dots on any item, and choose Clear all. Or open Settings > System > Clipboard and click Clear. Both empty your clipboard history on Windows 10 and 11. The details below cover the cases that trip people up: single items, pinned items, and the cloud copy.
Method 1: from the Win+V panel
- Press Win+V (the Windows key and V together) to open clipboard history.
- Click the three dots on any entry and choose Clear all.
- Every unpinned item disappears. The current clipboard content, the thing you copied last, is cleared too.
Method 2: from Settings
- Open Settings (press Win+I to get there fast).
- Go to System, then Clipboard.
- Under Clear clipboard data, click Clear.
This does the same thing as Clear all in the panel, with one difference that matters: if you have Sync across devices turned on, the Settings button also removes your clipboard data from your Microsoft account, not just from this PC.
Delete one item, keep the rest
You do not have to nuke everything to get rid of one embarrassing or sensitive copy. Press Win+V, click the three dots on the item you want gone, and choose Delete. The rest of your history stays.
Pinned items survive every clear
Clearing the synced cloud clipboard
If you turned on Sync across devices, your clipboard travels through your Microsoft account to reach your other Windows PCs. To clear that copy as well:
- Use the Clear button in Settings > System > Clipboard, which removes clipboard data from the device and from Microsoft’s servers.
- To keep clipboard data from going to the cloud in the future, switch Sync across devices off on the same page.
On a Mac, Android phone, or iPhone the steps are completely different, because each platform stores copies its own way. We cover those in clearing the clipboard on other devices.
A better option than all-or-nothing
Windows gives you two blunt instruments: keep everything or wipe everything, with pinned items as the lone exception. That is frustrating when you want to drop a single sensitive copy but keep the rest of your history. Relic is built the other way around. You can delete an individual item without touching anything else, and you can pause capture when you are about to copy things you would rather not record at all. And because everything in Relic is encrypted on your device with a key only you hold, the history you do keep is unreadable to anyone else, including us. Per-item control instead of a panic button.
Frequently asked questions
Does clearing clipboard history delete pinned items?
No. The Clear button in Settings and the Clear all action in Win+V both empty the unpinned list but leave pinned items in place. If you want a pinned item gone, unpin it or delete it individually first, then clear the rest.
How do I delete just one item from Windows clipboard history?
Press Win+V to open the panel, find the item, click the three dots on it, and choose Delete. Only that entry is removed. Everything else, pinned or not, stays where it was.
Does clearing my clipboard history also clear it from the cloud?
If you use Sync across devices, the Clear button in Settings > System > Clipboard removes your clipboard data from the device and from your Microsoft account. Clearing from the Win+V panel handles the local list. To stop clipboard data reaching the cloud at all, turn off Sync across devices on the same Settings page.
Does restarting my PC clear clipboard history?
Mostly. Windows clipboard history empties on restart or shutdown on its own, except for pinned items, which survive reboots until you remove them. So a restart is a decent quick wipe, as long as nothing sensitive is pinned.