Anyone using a computer is probably well-versed with at least a few keyboard shortcuts. Those for cutting, copying, and pasting have been around for decades, and are almost hard-wired into every computer user’s memory. However, pasting multiple pieces of information in multiple different locations can quickly become a chore. Google found a way out for people usingthe best Chromebookswith a feature calledMultipaste, and it could soon become easier to access.
If you aren’t a power user, or simply haven’t heard of Multipaste before, think of it as a cache for copied items. You can copy up to five items in succession, in any random order, using the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut. Instead of pasting just the last-copied item using Ctrl+V, you can hit Search+V on your Chromebook to trigger Multipaste, and dump all the items in your desired sequence and location.
Unfortunately, the Search+V key combination could be rather unintuitive if you’ve been copy-pasting one item at a time using the OG shortcuts, and someone at Google seems to have realized this.Chrome Unboxedreports aChromium Gerritadds new experimental behavior — if you long-press the Ctrl+V key combination, Multipaste should show up, allowing replacement of the pasted content with anything else from recent clipboard history.
The ChromeOS Multipaste interface
This change could make it easier and more intuitive to access Multipaste on Chrome OS. Because long-pressing the default paste shortcut is easier than memorizing a new shortcut, a lot of Chrome OS users could discover Multipaste this way, or end up using it more frequently than before. The Gerrit states it will be accessible in the Dev, Canary, and Beta versions of Chrome OS, locked behind a flag. However, we don’t have a concrete release timeline for the stable channel.
If you’re a Windows user, there’s a similar implementation available — you just need to hit Win+V instead of holding Ctrl+V. The clipboard will show up with all the recently copied content (much more than five on Chrome OS), and you can select what to paste in the chosen destination. The Windows clipboard also allows pinning copied items, deleting them from the clipboard, and deleting the entire history at once.
With Multipaste on Chrome OS becoming easier to access, we can only hope Google continues to improve on this awesome and helpful feature.
