Did you know that you can view the last five items you’ve saved to the clipboard on your Chromebook? Just use the Launcher + V keyboard shortcut to see them. No, it’s not an intuitive shortcut. And that may be why Google is considering a small change to the ChromeOS clipboard history shortcut based on some recent code I discovered.
I say this is a small change, because it is. However, I love Google’s plan because it just makes sense.
What’s the change? Using the standard CTRL + V keyboard shortcut to view the ChromeOS clipboard history.
Instead of tapping that key combo to paste the most recent item, you’ll be able to long-press it and choose from the last five clipboard items. Yes, please!
Of course, this being a relatively new code change for ChromeOS, you can’t use it just yet. Well, at least I can’t on the latest Dev Channel. And I don’t typically run the ChromeOS Canary Channel.
For those that do and want to check for it, hop over to chrome://flags#clipboard-history-longpress and enable the flag. I imagine the flag will appear in the next week or so, unless it’s already appearing in the Canary Channel.
I also like this as a method to replace something you may have already pasted. Imagine a quick CTRL + V to paste one thing but you want to replace the snippet from your ChromeOS Clipboard history. Long pressing brings up the history and choosing a different snippet overwrites the previously pasted info.
Yes, I know I’m probably too excited by such a small change.
However, by using the industry standard shortcut, I think this can have a big, positive productivity impact. And think of any newer Chromebook owners that have used other operating systems. How would they even know to use the Chromebook Launcher + V keyboard shortcut to get their ChromeOS Clipboard history?
Whether you view this as a big or small improvement, it’s still an improvement. Anything that improves the ChromeOS user experience while keeping things simple, is good in my book!
6 Comments
Good stuff 🙂
I’m in favor of decoupling any really useful Chromebook key combo from the Launcher key. For practical ease-of-use reasons, I no longer have the Launcher key mapped. Google goofed up very badly on the placement of the Chromebook Launcher key. If they’d be willing to allow the user to remap the Launcher key to the position of the Screen Lock key, then that would be perfect. In addition to closing the lid, there are at least three other ways to use the mouse or key combos to lock the screen; so, a separate Screen Lock key is a big unnecessary waste anyway. ????
I think this will quickly become a winner & people will wish they could do the same on other platforms too.
I’m sorry I totally disagree. Intuitive or not, the reason is that way is precisely because that is the industry standard already! The search/any key is just the normal Meta key. And on normal keyboards that’s how you access the any/search key, by pressing the meta key. In other words the Windows key on Windows. Guess what Windows+V does in Windows? That’s right, clipboard history!
So exactly the same key combination accesses exactly the same function for people coming from other operating systems. And now they are changing it. That’s unfortunate
This is a better implementation for me. The awkward placement of the launcher button and travel distance to V button makes the clipboard history a bit jarring to use right now. As a WIndows user as well, I just wish the physical launcher button is at the same location as the Windows button.
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