Windows 11’s Clipboard History is broken after problematic 2024 update

This year’s big annual Windows 11 update was supposed to be exciting and positive, given all the cool features and improvements in it. But these past few weeks have shown that it’s been a nightmare for many.

After updating to Windows 11 24H2, users have reported all kinds of issues, including dead internet connections, undeletable cache files, driver-related crashes, and disappearing mouse cursors. All of that on top of several features and apps that have been removed.

Here’s yet another problem: after updating to Windows 11 24H2, the Clipboard History isn’t working for some users.

The Clipboard History is one of the best lesser-known features of Windows 11 that keeps track of everything you copy — including text and images — allowing you to browse a history of everything you’ve copied. It makes it easy to paste things you copied long ago.

According to Windows Latest, the Clipboard History no longer works for many users after updating, plunging them back into the before-times and forcing them to re-copy what they want to paste. It simply says “You’ll see clipboard history here once you’ve copied something,” even after users have indeed copied something.

What’s most annoying about this particular issue is that it was actually reported by Windows Insiders about three months ago, back when Windows 11 24H2 was still in testing. For whatever reason, Microsoft did not considered it important enough to fix.

Until the bug is fixed in a future update, you may be able to use this workaround to get it working again:

1. Open Settings.
2. Under System, scroll down and select Clipboard.
3. Toggle Clipboard history off and on.
4. Toggle Clipboard history across your devices off and on.
5. Disable Suggested actions, then use the Windows key + V shortcut to open Clipboard History, then enable Suggested actions again if you want it back on.

After the above, Clipboard History should be functional again. Microsoft hasn’t officially acknowledged the bug yet, but it’s possible we’ll see a fix for it sooner rather than later.

Further reading: Insanely useful Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts