How do I TURN OFF Universal Clipboard?

[friednoodles]

A few things:

It's been covered a bit elsewhere in reviews and Apple's site ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681 ), but Universal Clipboard is performed via Continuity features.

As with Handoff, this means it only operates locally over Bluetooth/WiFi. No clipboard data is sent to iCloud. iCloud is only used to determine which devices are signed into the same account.

Craig Federighi briefly confirms this in the interview he did with John Gruber at WWDC:

Edit: the auto-embed feature of the forum stripped the time code from my link. If you want to skip to the relevant time, go to 1 hour 12 minutes.

Because Universal Clipboard uses Continuity, Bluetooth and WiFi must be enabled and the devices must be connected to the same WiFi network. When a copy is made on one device, it doesn't push that data to other devices, it just notifies the other devices that new pasteboard data is available.

When you paste on a device, it contacts the device that most recently indicated that a copy was made and requests the data from that device. So the data isn't transferred until a paste is made. (you can test this by copying a large image on one device and trying to paste it on another)

Additionally, apps can control whether data is available for Universal Clipboard.

There's info about this on the developer portal, but a summary of the new privacy options were noted in this developer session at WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/709/?time=2015 Here's the transcript if you don't want to load the video:

You can now set the expiration time and a local only value to any values you put on the pasteboard. Setting the expiration time will make it so the value put on the pasteboard will be removed after that date, or on that date. And setting the local only value to true, will exclude those values from the universal clipboard.

So here's an example, in this case we have a UIImage that we're going to put on the pasteboard, along with the string "Hello, world." We're going to set the expiration time to 120 seconds from now. And we're going to set the local only value to true.

So in two minutes, this value will no longer be on the pasteboard. And, these values cannot be pasted using the universal clipboard. So why would you want to do this? Well, if you know for a fact that a user is copying something really sensitive, such as a password or a phone number, or an email address and you don't think it should be on the clipboard for very long, set the expiration time. And if you don't think it's appropriate for those values to be used in universal clipboard, set the local only value to true.​

So apps like 1Password can specifically opt out of Universal Clipboard.

Given the sensitive nature of clipboard data, the feature was designed with privacy and security in mind.

 

[pilot3033]

A few things:

It's been covered a bit elsewhere in reviews and Apple's site ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681 ), but Universal Clipboard is performed via Continuity features.

Aas with Handoff, this means it only operates locally over Bluetooth/WiFi. No clipboard data is sent to iCloud. iCloud is only used to determine which devices are signed into the same account.

Craig Federighi briefly confirms this in the interview he did with John Gruber at WWDC:

Because Universal Clipboard uses Continuity, Bluetooth and WiFi must be enabled and the devices must be connected to the same WiFi network. When a copy is made on one device, it doesn't push that data to other devices, it just notifies the other devices that new pasteboard data is available.

When you paste on a device, it contacts the device that most recently indicated that a copy was made and requests the data from that device. So the data isn't transferred until a paste is made. (you can test this by copying a large image on one device and trying to paste it on another)

Additionally, apps can control whether data is available for Universal Clipboard.

There's info about this on the developer portal, but a summary of the new privacy options were noted in this developer session at WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/709/?time=2015 Here's the transcript if you don't want to load the video:

You can now set the expiration time and a local only value to any values you put on the pasteboard. Setting the expiration time will make it so the value put on the pasteboard will be removed after that date, or on that date. And setting the local only value to true, will exclude those values from the universal clipboard.

So here's an example, in this case we have a UIImage that we're going to put on the pasteboard, along with the string "Hello, world." We're going to set the expiration time to 120 seconds from now. And we're going to set the local only value to true.

So in two minutes, this value will no longer be on the pasteboard. And, these values cannot be pasted using the universal clipboard. So why would you want to do this? Well, if you know for a fact that a user is copying something really sensitive, such as a password or a phone number, or an email address and you don't think it should be on the clipboard for very long, set the expiration time. And if you don't think it's appropriate for those values to be used in universal clipboard, set the local only value to true.​

So apps like 1Password can specifically opt out of Universal Clipboard.

Given the sensitive nature of clipboard data, the feature was designed with privacy and security in mind.

Solid post. Thank you for the more technical breakdown!

 

[XboxMySocks]

As a recommendation, I would also take the tinfoil hat off.

 

[xaqt93]

I hate to be the troll in this...but why do you trust 1Password over Apple? Im not saying Apple is more trustworthy...but both companies claim to encrypt data...both of them provide proof of that fact.

As for the universal clipboard, there is no way to turn it off. It is a feature built into handoff. As of now, you have to turn off handoff inorder to stop the universal clipboard feature. But as others have stated, your info is not uploaded to the cloud. It is sent over your own wifi connection. It is all encrypted.

 

[stooovie]

I hate to be the troll in this...but why do you trust 1Password over Apple? Im not saying Apple is more trustworthy...

I also dont get this trust people have in totally unknown entities like new antivirus companies... "Free Antivirus? Suure, here's root level access to my drive!". It really all comes down to trust, because we have little of any way to know how stuff really works but people should be more considerate with their trust.

 

[X--X]

A few things:

It's been covered a bit elsewhere in reviews and Apple's site ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681 ), but Universal Clipboard is performed via Continuity features.

As with Handoff, this means it only operates locally over Bluetooth/WiFi. No clipboard data is sent to iCloud. iCloud is only used to determine which devices are signed into the same account.

Thanks this is an interesting info, very good post. It's unfortunate that Apple has no easily accessible documentation of this feature.

 

[friednoodles]

Thanks this is an interesting info, very good post. It's unfortunate that Apple has no easily accessible documentation of this feature.

Yes, they could make it easier to find. However, they do provide this security implementation summary document:

https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

It hasn't yet been updated for iOS 10, but if you go to page 48 it describes how Continuity works, and this is the process used for Universal Clipboard. The Handoff section (which continues into page 49) has further details and describes the same method that Universal Clipboard uses to authenticate, advertise and pass data between devices over locally established BT/WiFi connections.