Paste for the iPhone

In this video, we’re going to take a look at paste for the iPhone paste is one of my favorite apps, and it is an app that I use on a daily basis. Basically, it’s a clipboard manager, we can keep a history of all of the things that we’ve copied, we can even organize them into folders or pinboards. Let’s take a look at why I like paste so much. Let’s go to my iPhone. Now paste is an app that you download from the App Store, I’ll first say that I am not affiliated with the developer at all, this is just one of my favorite apps to use. There are other apps that you can use that do similar things, I just like to use paste, it seems to have a simple interface. And I love the Mac version of it. So let’s go over to the app store and take a look at how we find it. It is a paid app. So I go over to the app store here. And then what I need to do is I need to search for paste. So I click on search.

We go up to the search here. And let’s type in paste. This is the app that I’m talking about. It’s the yellow icon. Again, there are other apps that are available that will do a similar thing, a clipboard manager. Another popular one is Yoink. So I’m going to talk about paste in this. So I have it installed. How do we use it? Why do we want to use it? Well, first, let’s go and open up Safari. So I’m going to swipe up from the bottom here. Let’s open up Safari here. I want to copy some of this text. So let’s just go ahead and select it. So I just tap and hold. I’m going to select some of this text here. And now what I do is I just tap on copy. When I tap on copy here. What it does is it places it into the iPhones clipboard. Now one of the things one of the limitations of the iPhones clipboard is it can only copy one thing at a time, it doesn’t keep a history. So if I were to copy something else over to replace what I copied there, so let’s just select something out. I just select outside, it’s deselected. Now I’m just going to select something else, we’re just going to go with the word option here. I tap on copy. And what I copied before that sentence is no longer there. Again, this is a limitation of copy and paste on the iPhone. Actually, it’s the limitation of copy and paste on the iPhone, the iPad and the Mac. Well with a clipboard manager like paste, what we’re able to do is view that clipboard history.

We can take what we’ve copied here, put it into paste, and then we can use it at a later date. Paste keeps a running history 30 days of history of things that you’ve copied, you can even organize them into folders or pinboards. So how do we copy something into paste? Well on the Mac, all we have to do is just copy it and in the background. It’ll put it into pastes clipboard, well on the iPhone and the iPad, it doesn’t quite work that way. The iPhone and the iPad are limited. What happens is this paste is running in the background actually, it’s not running in the background. It’s paused in the background.

So when you copy something, it can’t put it into pastes clipboard. So how do we use this as our clipboard manager? Well, it’s pretty simple. All we have to do is copy. So let’s say I want to copy this word here option. So I copy it. Now what I need to do is I open up paste when I open up paste, it’s going to automatically put it into paste clipboard history. So let’s do that. I swipe up, we have pasted down here, I tap on it. And when we go to clipboard history here, we can see the word option. So it’s a two step process on the iPhone as well as the iPad, we first have to copy it out of the app. In my case, I copied it out of Safari, and then I have to open up paste and it’ll automatically paste it into the clipboard history for paste and then I can use it at a later date. You’re gonna see I have all kinds of different things that I’ve copied here and I can reuse them. So let’s say I wanted to

paste this link, I need to copy and paste it and send it to someone. Well, all I have to do is just tap on it. And then you’re going to see the copy button here. I can also tap and hold on. We have a menu that pops up and I can copy it. And then my favorite way is to just swipe to the right. And when I do that, it copies it. Now you’re gonna see that it removed it why did it remove it? It didn’t actually remove it. It just places it back up at the top because I just copied at seven seconds ago. So now that is in the iPhones, pasteboard or clipboard so now I can go in to Pages or any other app and paste that what I just copied.

So I can do that with any one of these things. This is the beauty of a clipboard manager, you have a running history. Now we can also manage these and place them into folders or what paste calls pinboards. This history here will delete after 30 days, any thing that I have in here will be automatically deleted after 30 days. So let’s say you wanted to have something that was in there indefinitely, maybe it’s a link that you use quite a bit, well, then what you do is you put it into a pin board, you’re going to see pin boards up here at the top. When I tap on pin boards, I have a number of different pin boards. So now all I need to do is just tap on any one of these, let’s go to useful links. And I have all of these useful links here that I can use, I just swipe to the right to use it. Let’s go back over to pin boards. To manage these, we just go over to the More button up here. And then you’re able to manage the pin boards. From here, I’m able to delete any of them, I can reorder them, I can create a new one. And I can rename and recover these. So let’s go with useful links, I want to change the color I tap on this. And then I can change the color as well as rename it. I’m going to cancel.

How do we place a link or a clipboard into one of these pin boards. Well, let’s go and tap on Done here. And we’re going to go to our clipboard history. Let’s say I wanted to save this link import bookmarks. I want to send it to someone at a later date, or it’s something that I send out on regular basis. Well, all you have to do is just tap on it. And you’re going to see the pin here, tap on that. And I can move it to a folder or pin board. I can also create a pin board. I can also go ahead and get out of here. I can also tap and hold. We have a menu pops up. And I can pin it as well. You’ve heard me mentioned share, we can share these as well, you’re going to see share when I tap on share. I can message this to someone I can email it to someone. So we can share anything that we’ve copied previously. We can also sync this whether other devices or uses iCloud. So anything that I’ve copied in here will sync across my other devices. This is all set up in the settings.

So let’s go back over to my more here and take a quick look at the settings, tap on it. We go over to Settings. Basically, we just have a few different settings here, I can copy on App activation. Remember how when I copied something in Safari, and then when I opened up paste it automatically put it into paste. That’s because this is on it copies on App activation, we like to have that. Also, I can copy on widget activation, we’ll talk about widgets here shortly. When you tap on a paste widget, it’ll also copy it. And then we also have enabled cloud sync. So I like to leave all of these on. Now let’s take a look at how we can best use this. Well you can do is you can add paste to your today widget. This is what I like to do on the iPhone on the iPad. It doesn’t necessarily work that well.

But you can use it as a slide over. Remember how I said you have to have paste running for it to work? Well on the iPad, we can use it as a slide over. So when it’s a slide over, anything that you copy will automatically be placed into paste while on the iPhone, we can’t do that. So how do we quickly get to paste? Well, I could add it to the doc but we can only have like four items in this doc do I want to take up one of those spots with paste I could if I use it a lot. But another thing to do is just add it as a today widget then you can easily access it via your two day widget. So let’s go ahead and do that and see how this works. So I’m going to tap and hold to get to where you can modify your home screen, swipe over to the right. And now you’re going to see plus up at the top. This is how we add a widget to our today view. So now I tap on this. I have all of the widgets, I’m going to swipe up and we’re going to go to paste. From here I have a few different options here.

I can view my clipboard history in the widget, I can search it I can use useful links. I’m just going to go with clipboard history here. So I just drag it up and I placed it at the top so I have easy access to it. Now when I tap on Done, we have my clipboard history here. So now how do we use this all we have to do is go into Safari here and let’s say I wanted to copy this copy. Now I need to activate paste right this is the only way we can get it into paste by activating paste. Well I just go to my today view and when I tap on clipboard history, it puts it into paste so I have easy access to it through the Today view. So I widget gives us easy access to paste. Now if you have a lot of items in paste what you can also do is I’m going to tap on paste here. And you’re going to see search, I can search for anything that I have in my clipboard, we can even rename them. Let’s go back over to my pinboards. This is probably where you would use it most I go to my useful links. And I have here working with paste, I want to rename this right now it is named link to pace.com.

Well, all I have to do is just tap on this, and then I go to rename. And then I can rename this. So I could name it something that I can easily search for or remember, the last thing I want to mention as extensions, I’m going to cancel here. And we’re going to swipe up, I’m going to go to Safari, what we’re able to do is share this as an extension. So what I’m going to do is just tap on this link here. And I want to add this link to paste. A couple different ways to do that. When we go down to the share icon here. What we’re able to do when we swipe over to the left, is put this into paste when I use this option here, this extension.

What I’m able to do is name it, remember how I talked about how we could name it. And then I can also put it directly into one of the pin boards. So I have a few more options when I use this option here. But you’re also going to see that down towards the bottom here, I have Copy to Clipboard history, this is more of a shortcut, it is not going to open up paste, I can’t rename it, I can’t place it into a pinboard. All it does is just put it into the clipboard history. So when I click on this or tap on it, it now just put it into the clipboard history. Now, we can’t do that with individual things that we select here. So if I were to select any one of these, I would not be able to copy this and then put it into the clipboard history. When I do that, what it does is it puts that link in there. So it is a little bit of a limitation to use this share icon with these extensions. So if I go back into paste, instead of pasting that text that I copied, you’re going to see what it did is it put the link to the website, so you’re sharing the website so it is a little bit limited when you use those extensions.

So that is one of my favorite apps on the iPhone as well as the iPad and the Mac. Basically paste is a clipboard manager. There are other clipboard managers out there and there’s some good ones out there. This one just seems to work best for me. Well, you’re able to do is see everything that you’ve copied over the last 30 days. You can also keep them longer by putting them into pinboards or folders we can share what we’ve copied. Well you’ll want to do is add the paste widget to your today view so then you have easy access to it because it’s a two step process. You copy what you want and then you open up paste. Once you do that, it’ll put it into the clipboard history and you can use it at a later date. So that’s how we use paste as a clipboard manager on the iPhone.