About ClipboardClean
ClipboardClean started as an internal fix for a recurring annoyance: text copied out of Word or Google Docs into a CMS would arrive carrying inline styles, MsoNormal classes and font tags, and half an hour would go into deleting markup nobody could see. Once we started measuring what a paste actually contains, the invisible half turned out to be the more interesting one — zero-width characters, non-breaking spaces and links wrapped in redirect trackers.
The page you are using is a static file. There is no account system, no analytics, no error reporting and no backend to talk to — the cleaning runs in your browser with the standard DOM parser, and the text you paste stays in the tab until you close it. Images found in a paste are shown as placeholders rather than loaded, so even a tracking pixel inside a copied newsletter never gets the chance to phone home.
It is built and maintained by Interhive OÜ, a small studio in Tallinn that makes tiny, dependable web tools.
What it does
Reads both clipboard flavours
A paste carries text/html and text/plain. ClipboardClean takes the HTML one, counts what is in it, and falls back to plain text when there is no HTML at all.
Shows the findings before removing them
Seventeen kinds of finding, grouped into tracking, invisible characters and leftover markup. Select any count to highlight it in the pasted text or in the HTML source.
Rebuilds the text, not just strips tags
Output is written from a whitelist: paragraphs, headings, lists, links, tables, emphasis and code. Divs become paragraphs, spans disappear, empty elements are dropped.
Plain text, rich text or Markdown
Copy rich text and both clipboard flavours are written at once. Markdown is produced with GitHub-flavoured tables and strikethrough. Downloads are .txt, .html and .md.
What it will not do
It does not open files — it works on what you copy, not on documents. It does not keep images: an embedded picture is reported and dropped, because the point of the tool is text. And it cannot tell you where a bit.ly link goes, because resolving a shortener means asking its server, which would mean sending your link somewhere. Those are honest limits, not missing features.
Get in touch
Found a paste it handles badly, or a tracking parameter we are missing? Email us — we read everything.
support@interhive.org