If you ask me, clipboard history is arguably one of the best features ever added to Windows. I remember discovering this feature a few years ago, and it felt like I had just found the greatest thing ever. I could literally press Windows + V and see/paste tons of things I’d copied earlier.

Windows clipboard history has gone through a few changes over the years, but something that has stayed the same is its limit. You see, clipboard history only allows you to store up to 25 copied items. As a writer who copies lots of words, phrases, sentences, links, and images to use later, that can feel pretty limiting sometimes.

I wanted more, so I ventured out and found Ditto. It takes everything I like about Windows clipboard history and gives me far more control.

Ditto’s clipboard history is practically unlimited

I can decide how many copied items I want to keep

The biggest reason I switched to Ditto is simple: I needed to be able to store more entries. Ditto lets me set my own limit for how many clipboard entries it should keep. I could set it to 20 if I wanted a smaller history, or go all the way up to 100, 1,000, or even more depending on how much history I want to retain.

I set mine to 200, which feels like the right balance for the way I work. I copy a lot throughout the day, but I don’t necessarily need thousands of old clipboard entries sitting there forever.

What I like even more is that Ditto doesn’t clear my clipboard history when I restart my PC. By default, Ditto saves copied text, images, and links to a local database, so my clipboard history survives a Windows restart. With Windows clipboard history, I don’t get that luxury for ordinary copied items (except for pinned items).

This is very helpful when I’m working on something over several days. If I copied a sentence, image, or link earlier and forgot to save it somewhere else, I can still find it in Ditto later. Of course, unlimited history doesn’t mean Ditto has to keep everything forever. The app lets me set how long clipboard items should be stored, so I can decide when older entries should be deleted.

You get a search feature and even an editor

I can search my entire clipboard history and change an item before pasting it

An app that can store hundreds or thousands of clipboard entries needs a good way to find something. Otherwise, having a massive history would just mean scrolling through an even bigger list. Thankfully, Ditto has a search feature that makes this much easier.

So, instead of scrolling through days of clipboard history looking for something I copied earlier, I can open Ditto and type a keyword. The app immediately filters my clipboard history and shows entries that match what I’m looking for.

Ditto also lets me edit clipboard entries before pasting them, which is something I didn’t expect from a clipboard manager. Its editor is basically a tiny notepad built into the app. I can open a copied text entry and make changes before sending it to wherever I need it. And it’s not limited to plain text editing either. The editor gives me options to change things like font, font size, and text color.

Ditto is free, lightweight, and highly customizable

I get all these features without paying for a subscription or using many resources

The app runs in the background and, on my PC, uses less than 5MB of memory. That’s nothing compared with many modern applications that sit in the system tray doing far less. And then you have the customization options.

Windows clipboard history gives me Windows + V as its keyboard shortcut, and that’s set in stone. Meanwhile, Ditto gives me a choice. Its default hotkey is Ctrl + Backtick (`), but I can change it to whatever shortcut I prefer. I can also customize hotkeys for various other commands inside Ditto, so I don’t have to rely entirely on the defaults.

You can also tweak how the app looks and feels. I can change things such as the window size, transparency, fonts, themes, and the position of the clipboard window on the screen. Mind you, there’s no paid version hiding behind all these features.

Ditto is completely free, which makes the whole thing even easier to recommend. I’m getting a much more capable clipboard manager without having to deal with a subscription, upgrade prompts, or a stripped-down free version.

I don’t think I’ll go back to Windows clipboard history

Windows clipboard history is still an awesome feature, and I’m glad Microsoft added it. Being able to press Windows + V and get something I copied earlier is something I use constantly. But once I started copying hundreds of things for work, the 25-item limit became difficult to ignore. Ditto solved that problem for me, and the fact that it’s free and uses few resources makes the decision even easier.

OS

Windows

Developer

Scott Brogden

Price model

Free, Open-source