Clippy

There’s one particular Windows feature which is close to impossible to even imagine not having, namely the clipboard. Even though it can only store on item by default, there are tons of third-party alternatives and enhancements. A suitable example here is Clippy, which also helps share items throughout a network.

First of all, your computer needs to be equipped with Java Runtime Environment to enable functionality. This also means you can use it on other computers, even if they don’t rely on Windows. What’s more, Clippy doesn’t need to be installed, so you can store and use it directly from a thumb drive.

The application becomes active and starts reading your clipboard as soon as you start it. In case you want to use it over a local network, you might want to pay a visit to the configuration panel. However, beaming clipboard items needs to be triggered, with a prompts showing to help you easily connect to the target.

You find three options to process the clipboard in the main window. You can choose from current clipboard, buffer, or a file you saved. Sadly, buffer entries are not shown by content, but rather the date they are created, making it pretty difficult to pick an item of interest to have it sent to the current clipboard.

There’s the possibility to view content of both the current clipboard and buffers. Sadly, there’s no built-in option to have every copied item automatically saved to buffer, and there’s no such dedicated hotkey to help out. In case you do work with large text strings you can load and save entire buffers, and view individual items before pasting them.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Clippy wants to help out when you need to tightly work with your team members. Clipboard items can be sent over LAN, but the overall design is a little rough around the edges, making it difficult to manage items, especially with no autosave function.