Microsoft’s cloud-powered clipboard – originally slated for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update – has finally materialized in a preview build of Windows 10 “Redstone 4”.

Well, sort of.

The feature isn’t wired up to the Microsoft Graph yet, so can’t display or manipulate any real data. But it came with placeholder content that provides a peek at how it will work.

Let’s take a look.

Similar to the Emoji Panel in Fall Creators Update, the clipboard management UI is opened via a keyboard shortcut – WINKEY + V in this case. A pop-up appears next to the caret, and it displays a list of items presently residing in your cloud clipboard – text snippets, documents, etc. (These items are sorted by copy time in descending order.) Some items may show a small cloud icon (☁) to indicate the content isn’t on your PC, meaning it will be pulled from the cloud if selected. (Selection of items is done via keyboard or mouse.)

Strangely, the prototype doesn’t show an obvious way to remove items from your cloud clipboard.

If you’re a touch keyboard user, fret not. There is a new clipboard button for easy one-tap access.

We Still Have Questions

Of course, without the real thing to play with, we still have lots of unanswered questions about how this will all work. For example, how do we manage this clipboard data? How many items can we stuff in there? How large can each item be? Can I exclude certain apps or snippets, like my LastPass passwords, from being automatically uploaded? Can I use this in the enterprise? (That one is for Mary-Jo Foley.) Will it be available outside the United States?

Do you have any burning questions? Let us know in the comments.

We’ll keep poking at the preview builds as Redstone 4 development continues and let you know if we learn anything new.

Tagged with Cloud Clipboard, Microsoft Graph