Swiftkey: the bridge between Android and Windows
Google started restricting clipboard access with the release of Android 10. This was a significant blow to cross-platform syncing clipboard apps. However, since the restriction was placed, many apps have started to adapt. Thus enters Swiftkey.
Since this restriction only applies to background apps that aren’t keyboards, you can use a third-party app, such as Swiftkey, to start syncing clipboard items across all platforms and devices. The latest beta version of the app supports cloud clipboard syncing with Windows.
To experience this, you will have to have the latest version of the app, Swiftkey v7.8.5.3, installed on your Android device. To activate syncing, you'll have to head to your keyboard settings and look for the ‘Rich Input’ section. In this section, you'll find a new ‘Clipboard’ entry and will be prompted to log into your Microsoft account if you aren’t already. Once logged in, you'll receive a prompt to sync your clipboard history. Once activated, this will allow you to seamlessly copy and paste the text back and forth between your Android phone and Windows device. However, you'll have to activate the syncing on your Windows device as well.
Despite the restrictions placed on background apps with the release of Android 10 and subsequent releases, Swiftkey has found a way to offer a cloud syncing clipboard feature using the keyboard.
We're grateful for the release of this feature on Swiftkey, especially with the number of passcodes and text messages sent to our Android devices. Now there is a way to seamlessly have access to these on our Windows devices as well.
If you're interested in testing this feature out for yourself, you can download the Swiftkey Beta on the Play Store or through an APK provider.
Closing words
Swifkey delivers by allowing cloud-based synchronization of your clipboard between Android and Windows devices. However, this may not seem like much, having the ability to sync information between platforms has always been a useful feature. We are excited to see what other possibilities this may hold in the future.
Clipboard syncing between my Android smartphone and my Windows laptop was something I looked into previously, and after trying searching around and finding several options where my preference is on using only WiFi/LAN connection (not reliant on third party servers, no cloud service involved) …
… I settled on using Wireboard (https://github.com/OldPlanets/Wireboard)
And I can always freely switch to and from Wireboard as my current selected Android device keyboard, only when I need to use that remote clipboard function.
is it end to end encrypted? Defeats the purpose of 2 factor authentication also?
Your Phone, link to windows
Beware. Swiftkey belongs to Microsoft now, and so they force you to have telemetry on. This forced telemetry is different than their “sharing snippets” telemetry, that you supposedly can opt out of. They insist that it is “anonymous”, but no Microsoft telemetry is truly anonymous.
https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201454572-What-data-is-collected-sent-while-using-Microsoft-SwiftKey-Keyboard-
Thank you for posting that link Tony.
According to that link, if their app crashes, your device will automatically send data to BOTH Microsoft AND Google.
There is no indication that you can turn this off, nor review the data before it is sent to 2 of the biggest data harvesting mega-corporations in the world.
These big companies always claim the data is “anonymous” but they rarely (if ever) provide a way for you to verify what they are sending from your device to see just how “anonymous” it really is.
Often “anonymous” data is uniquely identifiable, despite what companies want people to believe. No idea if that is the case here, because I don’t think you ever get to see the actual data they are transmitting from your device.
Huh? What? This article is so confusing and is missing so many essential details.
What needs to be running on Windows to allow the syncing? Where is this data stored? Who is storing the data? Who owns SwiftKey? What versions of Android does this work with? What versions of Windows does this work with? Where does the data appear in Windows? What other data gets shared from Android if you enable this? (SwiftKey appears to collect a massive amount of data, including pretty much every word and number you ever typed.) What data gets shared from Windows if you enable this? What protections are in place for your data? Is you data stored encrypted or in plain text? Who is writing this?
>”cloud” synchronisation
Ahahah, straight into the garbage it goes. It’s a keyboard. A keyboard does not need internet access at all!
I need it. I want the least amount of differences in my devices for UI and the more information I can access seamlessly across my phone/tablets/handheld/desktop/laptop/gamesPC/work devices, the easier my day/week/month become.
Not a fanboy of any company but having my clipboard sync between devices has been incredibly handy for me. It’s also a feature you can opt-in and not mandatory. It’s also one less thing to involve Google with, so that’s a bonus for me.
Swiftkey has used the internet to keep your settings in sync between devices which is quite handy since I have a few I use. That way to don’t have to start from scratch with each new device. It has done this since before Microsoft bought it. There are very few keyboards that don’t use the internet. One I tried at one point was Multiling O Keyboard which didn’t seem to use the internet. It has a lot of customization options but I found I didn’t have the time to make it work for me. Hence I stuck with Swiftkey.
True