Disable Clipboard Sync Across Devices in Windows 10

How to Disable Clipboard Sync Across Devices in Windows 10 with Group Policy

Recent builds of Windows 10 come with a new Clipboard History feature. It implements a cloud-powered clipboard, which allows syncing your clipboard contents and its history across devices you use with your Microsoft Account. System administrators and users who find no use for the Clipboard Sync Across Devices feature may want to force disable it. Here's how.

The Cloud Clipboard feature is officially named Clipboard History. It is powered by Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and utilizes the same technologies that made it possible to have your preferences synchronized across your devices, and your files made available everywhere with OneDrive. The company describes it as follows.

Copy paste – it’s something we all do, probably multiple times a day. But what do you do if you need to copy the same few things again and again? How do you copy content across your devices? Today we’re addressing that and taking the clipboard to the next level – simply press WIN+V and you’ll be presented with our brand-new clipboard experience!

Not only can you can paste from the clipboard history, but you can also pin the items you find yourself using all the time. This history is roamed using the same technology which powers Timeline and Sets, which means you can access your clipboard across any PC with this build of Windows or higher.

As of this writing, roamed text on the clipboard is only supported for clipboard content less than 100kb. Currently, the clipboard history supports plain text, HTML and images less than 4MB. The supported image size has been increased from 1 MB to 4 MB in Windows 10 build 18234 to handle the screenshots on High DPI displays.

If you need to apply a restriction and disable Clipboard Sync Across Devices, Windows 10 offers you at least two methods, a Group Policy option, and a Group Policy Registry tweak. The first method can be used in editions of Windows 10 that come with the Local Group Policy Editor app. If you are running Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education edition, then the Local Group Policy Editor app is available in the OS out of the box. Windows 10 Home users can apply a Registry tweak. Let's review these methods.

To Disable Clipboard Sync Across Devices in Windows 10,

1. Open the Local Group Policy editor app, or launch it for all users except Administrator, or for a specif user.
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > OS Policies on the left.
3. On the right, find the policy setting Allow Clipboard synchronization across devices.
4. Double-click on it and set the policy to Disabled.

You are done. The clipboard sync options are no disabled in Settings.

Tip: See How to Reset All Local Group Policy Settings at once in Windows 10.

Now, let's see how the same can be done with a Registry tweak.

Disable Clipboard Sync Across Devices in Windows 10 With a Registry Tweak

1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Go to the following Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

   Tip: See how to jump to the desired Registry key with one click.
3. If you do not have such a key, then just create it.
4. Here, create a new 32-bit DWORD value AllowCrossDeviceClipboard. Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows, you still need to use a 32-bit DWORD as the value type.
5. Leave its value data as 0 to disable the Clipboard Sync Across Devices feature.
6. To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you may need to restart Windows 10.

Later, you can delete the AllowCrossDeviceClipboard value to undo the change.

To save your time, you can download the following ready-to-use Registry files:

Download Registry Files

These also include the undo tweak.

Tip: You can try to enable GpEdit.msc in Windows 10 Home.

Articles of interest:

• How To See Applied Group Policies in Windows 10
• All Ways To Open Local Group Policy Editor in Windows 10
• Apply Group Policy to All Users Except Administrator in Windows 10
• Apply Group Policy to a Specific User in Windows 10
• Reset All Local Group Policy Settings at once in Windows 10
• Enable Gpedit.msc (Group Policy) in Windows 10 Home