Best clipboard manager for Windows: seven compared

How we compared them

We make ClipTen, so it comes first, and we tell you plainly what each of the others does well. Everything here was checked in September 2026. Prices and limits change, so check each maker’s own site before you buy.

1. ClipTen: paste by number, for the things you use all day

Mac, available now. Free for 30 days, then one slot free forever, or Lifetime from $10 once ($25 for all ten).

Every other tool here is a list you search. ClipTen is ten keys you put things on. Hold Ctrl, press C, tap a number — that copy now lives on that number. Hold Ctrl, press V, tap the number — it pastes, in any app, with no window opening.

It is the fastest option for the thing most people actually do, which is paste the same four or five items over and over for an hour. It keeps only what you choose, not a record of everything you ever copied, which is also why it stays private.

Slots hold formatted text, links, images and several files at once, up to 16 MB each, survive restarts, and never leave the computer — there is no sync and no cloud clipboard, and copies marked secret by a password manager are never saved.

Use it if you paste the same things again and again and want each one a single shortcut away. What ClipTen is, in two minutes →

2. The free ones Windows already has

Windows clipboard history — Win + V

Free, built in, Windows 10 and 11. Keeps your last 25 copies at up to 4 MB each, holds text, HTML and images, and clears on every restart apart from pinned items. Optionally syncs across your PCs through a Microsoft account.

Use it if you occasionally want something from earlier today and you have never installed a clipboard tool in your life. It is good, and it costs nothing. Full guide →

The Office Clipboard — Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Free with Microsoft Office. Open it from the corner of the Clipboard group on the Home tab. Holds 24 copies and has a Paste All button, but only while an Office app is open, and only for pasting inside Office.

Use it if you are assembling one document from several others. How it fits with the rest →

3. The free, open-source archives

Ditto

Free, open source, Windows. The one long-time Windows users recommend, and deservedly. Effectively unlimited history, text and images and files and custom formats, groups, permanent hotkeys for frequent clips, editing an item before you paste it, and syncing between your own PCs on a network.

Use it if you want a deep searchable archive and do not mind an interface that looks its age. It is the most capable free option on Windows. Ditto and ClipTen compared →

CopyQ

Free, open source, Windows, macOS and Linux. The same idea with scripting on top — it can transform items automatically as they arrive. Genuinely powerful, and more setup than most people want.

Use it if you are technical, or have a rule you want applied to everything you copy.

4. The friendlier ones

ClipClip

Free, Windows. A history you can organise into folders, with a preview before you paste and built-in text converters for changing case or stripping formatting.

Use it if you like to keep clips filed away and find Ditto’s look off-putting.

ClipboardFusion

Free, with a paid Pro version, Windows. Its strength is scrubbing: it can strip formatting or rewrite text automatically on the way through, and run macros on what you copy. Pro adds sync between computers.

Use it if most of your trouble is pasted text arriving in the wrong font or format.

All of them, side by side

How to choose in one minute

• You paste the same few things all day and want each one on a key: ClipTen.
• You want something built in with nothing to install: Win + V.
• You want to search everything you have ever copied: Ditto.
• You want rules applied automatically: CopyQ.
• You want pasted text cleaned up for you: ClipboardFusion.

ClipTen also sits happily next to any of them: a history for looking back, and ten keys for the work in front of you.

Last checked September 2026.