Paste without formatting on Mac and Windows

On a Mac

The system-wide shortcut is ⌥+⇧+⌘+V, called Paste and Match Style. It works in Mail, Notes, Pages, TextEdit, Safari and most other apps, and it is in the Edit menu where an app supports it.

• Google Docs and Gmail in a browser: ⌘+⇧+V.
• Word for Mac: Edit › Paste Special › Unformatted Text, or the paste options button after pasting.
• TextEdit as a cleaner: paste into a new document, choose Format › Make Plain Text (⌘+⇧+T), then copy again.

On Windows

Ctrl+Shift+V pastes plain text in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Google Docs, Gmail, Slack, Teams and many other apps. Office has its own ways:

• Word (Microsoft 365): Ctrl+Shift+V pastes text only. In any version, paste normally, press Ctrl on its own, then T for Keep Text Only.
• Word, PowerPoint, Outlook: Ctrl+Alt+V opens Paste Special. Choose Unformatted Text.
• Excel: Ctrl+Alt+V, then V for Values, pastes the numbers without the cell formatting.
• Notepad as a cleaner: paste in, copy back out. Notepad cannot hold formatting, so none survives.

Microsoft’s free PowerToys adds Advanced Paste, which pastes plain text in any app with Win+Ctrl+Alt+V.

Make plain text the default

• Word for Windows: File › Options › Advanced › Cut, copy, and paste. Set Pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only.
• Mac, one app or all: in System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › App Shortcuts, add a shortcut with the menu title Paste and Match Style and the keys ⌘+V. That app then pastes plain text on a normal paste.
• Google Docs: there is no setting; use Ctrl+Shift+V or ⌘+⇧+V.

When you need the formatting gone for good

Paste-as-plain-text removes fonts, colours and links. It can leave behind things you cannot see: non-breaking spaces, zero-width characters and hard line breaks from PDFs. These tools clean them out in your browser:

• Remove formatting: paste anything, get plain text back.
• Remove line breaks: joins lines broken by PDFs and emails.
• Clipboard viewer: shows every format your copy carries, so you can see what is hiding.

Where ClipTen fits

Sometimes you want the formatting: the signature with its link, the table with its layout. A plain-text paste would lose it.

ClipTen keeps a copy exactly as you copied it. Ctrl+C+1 saves it to key 1, formatting and all, and Ctrl+V+1 pastes it in any app. On a Mac it is ⌘+C+1 and ⌘+V+1. Ten slots, kept after a restart. Slots 1 to 5 are free. See how it works →

Last checked October 2026.