The Clipboard Menu doesn't always show the latest clipboard

[raguay.customct]

I just received my MacBook Pro with the M1 chip and Big Sur. The clipboard handling seems to be a bit buggy. I can copy something to the clipboard from a program, but it will not show in the clipboard menu for Alfred (Alt-CMD-C). But, it is usable in the clipboard and in the Alfred workflows/snippets. It just isn't showing up in the menu. For instances, when I copy a name from Cielo24.com (a website for getting closed captions done), it will not show in the menu. I do this often because the file names are often longer than their website will show. Instead of looking at the clipboard menu, I have to copy it into the Alfred Browser or some other program to see it. Actually, I just tried to copy this text and view it there and the menu is stuck on something I copied the first day I got the new computer.

[Vero]

@raguay.customct We've been using an M1 Mac for quite some time (as have many other users) and the Clipboard is behaving perfectly normally, so it's more likely to be something specific to your Mac.

 

A few things to check out:

1. Does the issue only happen when copying from a website? What happens if you copy text in TextEdit? If it's specific to websites, consider whether your browser is marking the things you're copying as Concealed Data (either because of the website itself, or because of a browser plugin you're using).
2. If the "menu is stuck on something I copied the first day", could it be that you migrated your Mac from another and the clipboard database has become corrupted in the process? You can type "clear" into Alfred and choose "Clear Clipboard History" which will delete and recreate the clipboard database, ensuring that any corruption from a migration is removed.
3. Simple question but... have you enabled Clipboard History on your new Mac? This setting isn't migrated and must be enabled manually on every Mac to ensure that you are aware Alfred is copying data.

Let me know how you get on.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[raguay.customct]

Okay, it is working again. I guess it was a combination of things. I was using Alfred before my Dropbox was synced all the way. At that point, the clipboard history was enabled. When the Alfred preferences finished syncing (that took quite a while), then I set the new preferences location. Alfred must of turned off clipboard history at that point, and I thought it was still on. You might add a message to the user that clipboard history is turned off again when preferences location is changed.

 

Thanks.

[Vero]

@raguay.customct The Clipboard History setting is local to your Mac, and not stored in Dropbox, as we allow it to be set differently on each Mac (e.g. you might not want to use it at work, only at home). This is why you need to manually enable it on a new Mac.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[raguay.customct]

That is what I did. I manually enabled it, then when my Dropbox sync finished syncing the Alfred preferences, I enabled sync with that file. After that, the preference for enabling the Clipboard History was disabled. Now that I re-set it to be enabled, it is working again. Therefore, something disabled it that wasn't me.