Copy Paste Not Working on Mac? Heres How to Fix a Stuck Clipboard

Copy Paste Not Working on Mac? Heres How to Fix a Stuck Clipboard

Using copy and paste is a routine part of most peoples Mac workflow, so if suddenly the Copy and Paste feature stops working or the clipboard appears stuck, you can imagine why thats annoying. Dont stress out, most issues with nonfunctional clipboards and can be resolved with a series of fairly simple troubleshooting steps. These tricks work the same on all versions of macOS and Mac OS X, they work by targeting the clipboard daemon and forcing it to relaunch. This resolves nearly all instances of a stuck clipboard or other issues where copy and paste stop working. Well show you two different approaches to this, one using Activity Monitor and another using the command line. One way to force the Clipboard to relaunch itself in Mac OS via Activity Monitor: Open a Mac app again where copy and paste was not working as expected, and try again and it should work as expected. If the commands are not working, next try using the Edit menu approach of manually selecting Copy and Paste. If that approach works, it suggests something is going on with the keyboard rather than the clipboard. Sometimes that can mean Mouse Keys is enabled, or that some other app is conflicting with the standard keyboard shortcuts. If for whatever reason copy and paste is still not working after this trick, go ahead and by going too the Apple menu and choosing Restart. Restarting the Mac can often resolve issues like this, including some issues where may suddenly stop responding as expected, but obviously if you can remedy the problem without rebooting the Mac then that is preferable to most users. If you prefer to use the Terminal to remedy the problem, do the following: This will terminate and relaunch the pboard process, which is the clipboard daemon for Mac OS. If youre savvy with the command line you can immediate test if the clipboard is working as expected with . Again if this approach doesnt work, just reboot the Mac. If you know of another approach to resolving copy and paste problems in Mac OS and Mac OS X, share them with us in the comments below.