How to Access and Clear the Android Clipboard

Published December 3, 2013

If you read my earlier post, you’d know that out of all the available tablets on the market I settled for the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Once the decision was made I went to Best Buy to purchase it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the 32 GB Galaxy so I ordered it from Amazon.

I also purchased the Logitech Tablet keyboard for Android 3.0 and an inexpensive case for the Galaxy. I guess I should have purchased one of the more expensive tablet cases because you get what you pay for, but I’ll address that later.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

What a sleek looking piece of technology. Keep in mind that I’ve been using a 17” Dell Inspiron laptop that had seen better days. The thought of a small 10.1-inch device being able to handle the daily chores of writing and blogging seems a bit unreal.  Considering the fact that I'm still using an old Samsung cell phone (yes, that's cell phone, not smartphone) I'm making a tremendous leap from the Stone Age to the 21st Century.

There were several things I had/have to adjust to. I’ve used Microsoft most of my computing life. I did venture away a bit by using OpenOffice and a few other non-Microsoft open source programs, but in general, I was used to the Microsoft way of doing things. Android tablets operate differently than Microsoft.

Closing Software Applications

My biggest frustration initially was searching for the little “x” in the upper right-hand corner of each program in order to shut it down when I was finished with it. Android tablets and Smartphones don’t work that way.

Opening one program while another is running only moves the first program to the background and the second newly opened program is prominently displayed on the tablet. If you want to get back to the original program you have to depress the “back button” located on the front of the device.

This takes some getting used to. Additionally, if I get happy and open several programs, in the back of my mind I have to remember to close some of the unused programs.

I soon learned the power of the Home button. The Home button not only brings you back to your home screen, but if you press and hold the button down for a second or two, it brings you to the following screen that displays all open programs (I also learned to depress the “Power” and “Home” buttons simultaneously to get a screen clip):

At first, I tapped on “Close all” because I didn’t know how to close only those apps I was not using. I learned quite by accident that if I swipe them up or down, they disappear off the screen and close. Swiping left or right brings me to the following or previous page listing of open apps. Android world is much different than Microsoft world.

Feeling accomplished that I can now close programs to prevent them from taking up unnecessary battery power, I then set out to take care of my second most important task of getting rid of the on-screen keyboard in order to take advantage of the Samsung Galaxy’s stylus and my brand new Logitech blue tooth keyboard.

Last Modified: 10 February 2023

Comments

• Glenda Pitts April 6, 2016, 2:47 pm
  

  I’m reading this long after it was written but I have a keyboard that does not include a ‘clipboard’ key. Hence my desperation for fix. Sometimes 1 text copied can become 3 or 4 copies all to 1 Txt msg. I have a Samsung Galaxy S4. Anything new you’ve heard of to help me?

• Low Tech Grandma April 6, 2016, 3:09 pm
  

  Hi Glenda,

  I did a little searching online to see how to access the Samsung Galaxy S4 clipboard and this is what I found. What you need to do is press and hold down the key to the right of the “Sym” key. That will bring up a secondary menu option. In the secondary menu you should see the icon for your clipboard. Tap the clipboard icon to bring up what’s currently stored in y our clipboard.

  There should be a “Clear” key to clear your clipboard. I hope this helps.

• Raymond Cortes May 6, 2016, 10:23 pm
  

  well I figured out how to locate the clipboard in my Samsung galaxey A tablet... Simply go to and open your notepad Icon tap the icon that enables you to compose tap any letter a couple times on what ever keyboard your using press on one of the letters until the copy/paste blue tear drop appears…Now perss the blue tear drop for a couple seconds remove your finger from the screen and two icons will appear one says copy and the other says clipboard, tap the clipboard icon and you will see everything on the clipboard, on the right you eill see the words delete all tap that and the clipboard is cleared

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• Raymond Cortes May 6, 2016, 10:29 pm
  

  whoops people i meant to say locate the memo icon on your screen I dont know if memo and note pad are the same thing… anyways tap the MEMO icon everything else is the same...