What is Clipboard?
Clipboard is a location on a pc or mac where the copied text is stored for a short time. Whenever you select a few words or block of texts and then copy that text, your computer or macbook stores that text to the clipboard of the computer. This copied text or files remain in the clipboard until you copy something new or you cut another file or text. There are many ways to copy text into clipboard. You can select the file or text or even paragraphs and then right click from mouse and select copy option. Or you can use CTRL + C in Windows Operating System & COMMAND + C on Mac OSx to copy the data.
The clipboard is an awesome utility for many reasons. you can copy data and send to another external or internal drive. But sometimes for many reasons this may stop working and you may face errors or issues copying data. One of the most popular error which many people are facing in their macbook is “sorry, no manipulations with clipboard allowed“. You can find the reasons why this error happens and how to fix it below.
Why my Mac Shows “Sorry no manipulations with clipboard allowed”?
There could be many reasons for this error in your macbook. Some of the reasons are as:
Low Memory (RAM):
if you mac runs out of ram due to certain reasons, then the clipboard may stop functioning and shows different errors. Low memory can be because of running too many apps at the same time or running a specific app which is consuming more memory than your system have. You may also get a warning from your macbook that “Your mac is running low on memory”.
Clipboard stopped responding:
The Mac OSx is one of the most popular and secured OS, so there are very less chances that the system files may get corrupted. But if for any reason any the system file corrupts or gets damaged by a third-party app or source then there are chances that the clipboard may stop working. In that case most of the users get the error sorry, no manipulations with clipboard allowed, whenever they copy something.
Third-Party Application:
If you are using a third-party application for clipboard to store the last few executive items you copied and use them later as you want, then you can also face this error. This can happen if the app stops responding or corrupts due to some reason.
What to do if the Copy & Paste is not working on your mac?
If the copy and paste feature of your mac is stopped working and you don’t know what caused it to stop. After reading the above possible reasons you can have an idea why it stopped working. No worries, i have a detailed guide for how to fix it, so you could start using it again.
How to Fix sorry, no manipulations with clipboard allowed?
1.Free Up Memory (RAM):
You can close some apps if you have opened too many apps in your mac and they are consuming large amount of memory. You can right click on the app and click on Quit, or choose Force Quit if it is not responding. You can also Open Activity Monitor from Applications and see which app is using the more memory and causing a crash to other system applications.
- Click on Launchpad, and Search for Activity Monitor.
- Open Activity Monitor and click on “Memory” tab.
- Here you can find the list of applications and processes using the more ram.
- Simply select the process or app and click on X button on upper left corner. It will close the process.
2.Restart your mac
The most common way to fix any rare or small issue in any computer or mac is to restart your mac. Because it closes the extra apps running and may also fix the damaged or corrupted files many time. You can reboot your macbook by these methods:
- Click on Apple logo in upper left corner of the macbook window.
- Choose Restart option, it may take a few minutes to restart your mac.
Restart your Mac using Terminal:
Open Terminal App from Applications or by searching it in Launchpad. write the following command and it will restart your mac.
Sudo shutdown -r nowYou can also press and keep holding power button of the macbook. It will shutdown the mac. Press power button again to boot it.
3.Restart Clipboard app to Fix sorry no manipulations with clipboard allowed
Another and the most working step to fix sorry, no manipulations with clipboard allowed error is to close your clipboard app in your macbook so all the soft errors get fixed. There are many methods to close the clipboard app.
Close the clipboard app through Activity Monitor
The clipboard app in mac is names as pboard. So whenever you are going to close the clipboard app in your mac you must locate the pboard app and stop it. Follow these steps:
- Open the Activity Monitor app through Launchpad or by searching it in Applications folder if your mac.
- Once opened, search for pboard app and click on X button in upper left corner of the Activity Monitor app in your mac.
- You will get two options, “Quit” or “Force Quit” the app. If the app is not responding then you must select the force quit option to close it.
Close the clipboard app through Terminal
You can also close the clipboard app of your mac using terminal. Follow the steps below:
Click on Launchpad and Search for “Terminal”.
type the following command in terminal and press Enter.
It will ask you to write your administrator password, write the password and press enter again.
The Terminal app will close the clipboard app.
sudo killall pboard
After this you can copy something and check if the error is fixed already or not yet. If the error is still there and is not fixed yet then proceed to next step.
4.Check for available updates
Mostly the errors are fixed by updating your macbook to a latest available version. You can check if there are any security or application updates are available for your macbook or not. If the updates are available and are mandatory, then you must update it to latest version. In most cases this fixes the error.
There are two basic methods to check if there are any updates available for your mac. Please follow the steps below to check and install available updates.
- Open App Store on your mac.
- Click on Updates tab.
- You can find all available updates there. If any of the security updates are available there then you can install them.
Check for available updates on Mac OSx
Another method to check for available updates is:
- Click on Apple Logo in the upper left corner of the mac desktop windows.
- Then Click on “About This Mac”.
- A new window will be opened, click on Software update…
- It will check for all available updates and you can choose which one to install.
It is always wise to keep your mac updated. Therefore you can always keep checking for all the available updates and install the mandatory ones.
I hope one of the above method could have helped you to fix clipboard error “sorry, no manipulations with clipboard allowed” on your mac. But still if it is not fixed then i think there is something wrong with the system software of your mac. Although Mac OSx is one of the most stable Operating System ever and doesn’t have problems or viruses mostly but a few problems still occur where the system files gets damaged. If something like this happened to your mac then i will suggest you to restore or reset your mac so it will be back to its factory settings and may fix all the clipboard issues. The above mentioned fixes should fix your all Copy & Paste not working errors and warnings in your mac.
Conclusion
The Copy & Paste is not working and the no manipulation is allowed with clipboard errors are very rare if you are using a mac. But due to low memory issue, or third-party app damages or even system files corruptions, if you ever faced this issue then you can fix it by simply rebooting your mac, or by closing the clipboard app or by updating your mac.
Simply restart your mac or just close the pboard process. it will fix the issue.
