How to Clear the Clipboard in Excel

To clear the clipboard in Excel, go to the Home tab, click the small launcher arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Clipboard group, and click Clear All at the top of the Clipboard pane. Every item you copied or cut is removed from the Office Clipboard, and the pane shows that it’s empty.

These steps are for Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016 on Windows, the versions Microsoft lists on its Clear the Clipboard page. Excel 2010 and 2013 use the same Home tab launcher. Excel for Mac and Excel for the web work differently and are covered near the end.

What Gets Cleared

Excel has two things people call “the clipboard,” and they clear in different ways:

• The Office Clipboard is the list you see in the Clipboard pane. Microsoft says it holds up to 24 items copied from any Office program, not just Excel. Clear All empties this list.
• Copy mode is the moving dotted border (often called “marching ants”) around cells you just copied. Pressing Esc turns it off so Enter or Ctrl + V won’t paste that range again, but the item stays in the Clipboard pane.

Windows also keeps its own clipboard history, which is a third list. It’s covered in its own section below.

Clearing is permanent. There’s no undo for Clear All, so paste anything you still need into a cell or a document first. Clearing never touches the cells you copied from; only the stored copies go away.

How to Clear the Clipboard in Excel

1. Open your workbook and click the Home tab.
2. In the Clipboard group on the far left of the ribbon, click the dialog box launcher, the small arrow in the group’s bottom-right corner. The Clipboard pane opens on the left side of the worksheet and lists your copied items, newest at the top.
3. Click Clear All at the top of the pane. The list empties, and the pane shows a message that the Clipboard is empty.
4. Click the X in the pane’s top-right corner to close it.

To confirm it worked, open the pane again. It should list no items. Because the Office Clipboard is shared, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook will show the same empty pane.

Microsoft also notes that clearing the Clipboard is the fix for an error that says the Clipboard is full.

Open the pane from the keyboard

No single shortcut clears the clipboard, but you can reach the pane without the mouse:

1. Press Alt, then H, F and O, one key at a time. The Clipboard pane opens.
2. Press F6 until the pane has focus, then press Tab until Clear All is highlighted.
3. Press Enter. The items are removed.

How to Delete Just One Item

Use this when you want to keep most of your copied items.

1. Open the Clipboard pane.
2. Hover over the item and click the arrow that appears to its right, or right-click the item.
3. Choose Delete. That item disappears; the rest stay available to paste.

You can’t select several items and delete them together. Repeat the steps for each one, or use Clear All if you no longer need any of them.

How the Office Clipboard Works

• Up to 24 items: Microsoft says the Office Clipboard holds up to 24 items. Copying a 25th removes the oldest without warning.
• Newest on top: each copied item appears at the top of the pane, with an icon that shows which program it came from.
• Paste one or all: click the destination cell first, then double-click an item to paste it, or click Paste All to paste everything in the list.
• Shared across Office: items you collect in Excel can be pasted into any Office program, and items copied in Word show up in Excel’s pane.

When it’s worth clearing

• Shared or public computers: copied cells can hold salaries, account numbers or client lists. Clearing keeps the next person from pasting them.
• Starting a new task: an empty list makes it easier to find the right item when you paste from the pane.
• Before sharing your screen: an open Clipboard pane shows previews of everything you copied.

Change When the Clipboard Pane Appears

Click Options at the bottom of the Clipboard pane. Microsoft lists these settings:

• Show Office Clipboard Automatically: opens the pane when you copy more than one item.
• Show Office Clipboard When CTRL+C Pressed Twice: opens it when you press Ctrl + C twice in a row.
• Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard: keeps collecting items without opening the pane.
• Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar: puts a Clipboard icon in the notification area at the bottom-right of the screen. On by default.
• Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying: shows a short message with the item count when you copy. On by default.

If the pane keeps popping up, turn off Show Office Clipboard Automatically. A check mark next to a setting means it’s on.

Clear it from the taskbar icon

With the taskbar icon turned on, you can clear the Office Clipboard without opening the pane. Right-click the Clipboard icon in the notification area and choose Clear All. If you don’t see the icon, click the small up arrow next to the clock to show hidden icons.

Clear Windows Clipboard History Too

The Office Clipboard is separate from Windows clipboard history, so clearing one doesn’t clear the other. Microsoft’s clipboard in Windows page gives these steps for Windows 11 and Windows 10:

1. Press the Windows logo key + V. The clipboard history panel opens.
2. Select Clear all at the top. Pinned items stay; unpin them first if you want them gone.
3. To remove one entry instead, select See more (the three dots) next to it and choose Delete.

To clear history synced to the cloud as well, go to Start > Settings > System > Clipboard and select Clear next to Clear clipboard data. Our guide on how to clear the clipboard in Windows 11 walks through each option, and viewing clipboard history in Windows 11 explains how the panel works.

Using a Macro

Many sites suggest the VBA line Application.CutCopyMode = False. Microsoft’s CutCopyMode reference says it cancels Cut or Copy mode and removes the moving border, the same thing Esc does. It does not empty the Clipboard pane. Longer macros that click Clear All through accessibility calls depend on Excel’s internal layout and can stop working after an update, so the pane or taskbar icon is the safer route for most people.

Troubleshooting

• “Clipboard is full” error: open the pane and click Clear All, as Microsoft describes, then copy again.
• Items reappear after clearing: Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard may be on, so new copies keep being added in the background. Turn it off in Options if you don’t want that.
• Clear All isn’t clickable: the pane has nothing in it, so there’s nothing to clear.
• Excel asks about “a large amount of information on the Clipboard” when you close: this prompt appears after you copy a big range. Choose No if you don’t need to paste it into another program, or press Esc before closing so the range is no longer in copy mode.
• Old data keeps pasting: press Esc to cancel copy mode, clear the Office Clipboard, and check Windows clipboard history with Windows logo key + V.

If copy and paste fails in every program, not only Excel, see how to fix copy and paste in Windows 11.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does closing Excel clear the clipboard?

Don’t count on it. The Office Clipboard is shared by all Office programs, so if Word or Outlook is still open, closing Excel can leave the items in place. The last item you copied can also stay on the Windows clipboard. Click Clear All before you close Excel if you want the items gone.

Can I get cleared items back?

No. Cleared items aren’t saved anywhere. If you might need something later, paste it into a spare worksheet before you clear the list.

Is there a clipboard in Excel for Mac?

Excel for Mac has ordinary Copy and Paste, but it doesn’t have the Office Clipboard pane or a Clear All button, so the steps above don’t apply. Copying something new replaces what you copied before.

Can I clear the clipboard in Excel for the web?

Excel for the web doesn’t show the Clipboard pane. It uses your browser and the Windows or Mac clipboard, so press Esc to cancel copy mode and use Windows logo key + V on a Windows PC to clear clipboard history.

Does pressing Esc clear the clipboard?

Only partly. Esc ends copy mode and removes the dotted border, but the item stays in the Clipboard pane until you delete it or click Clear All.

If you’re moving data in from another program next, see how to copy Word text or tables into Excel.