Google Chrome Canary adds a Shared Clipboard feature for Android and PC

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Synchronization between different devices is ideal if you use the same browser on your portable devices as well as desktops. I depend on Google Chrome for daily usage and enjoy the seamless sync between Android and the desktop versions. With Chrome 77, Google also added the “Send to Your Devices” feature which lets you send webpages from the desktop version to other mobile devices or vice versa. In the works is another meaningful feature – a “Shared clipboard”, which will allow users to copy content across devices. The feature was recently added to Chrome’s Canary channel and here’s how you can use it too.

To begin with, make sure you have Chrome Canary 79 installed on both your desktop and your smartphone. On the desktop version, enter chrome://flags/ in the address bar. Lookup “clipboard” in the search bar on the page and you’ll see the following Chrome flags listed:



Enable receiver device to handle shared clipboard feature

Enable shared clipboard feature signals to be handled

Sync Clipboard Service

Click on the drop-down menu with “Default” as the preset option and select “Enabled” for all three flags. After this, you’ll be prompted to relaunch Chrome Canary by clicking on the “Relaunch” button. There’s no need to enable the flags separately on your smartphone.

Now, you can select any text on any webpage in Canary and then right-click to reveal the option, “Send text to <device name>.” Do note that you must also have the Canary channel installed on your Android device in order to send text to that device. A notification will pop-up on your smartphone telling you that text has been added to your clipboard. The copied text will be synched with the clipboard on your Android smartphone and will be universally available to be pasted.

You can just long-press inside any text field and tap on Paste to use the copied text just like I’ve used it in Google’s Messages app. Likewise, if you enable the flags on the Android version of Chrome Canary, you will be able to share the copy text. Once you select the text and choose “Share” from the menu that appears, you’ll see an option in Android’s share sheet to share it to other devices running Canary.

Via: Chrome Story