Gboard’s clipboard manager adding support for pasting, organizing images [Gallery]

Earlier this week, the Chromium Gerrit revealed that Chrome will soon let you copy images directly to Android’s clipboard. We’ve managed to enable that capability today, along with an image clipboard manager in the latest Gboard beta.

About APK Insight: In this “APK Insight” post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. We’ll try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how they’ll look in the case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.

Gboard 9.0 released early this morning reveals image support for the “Gboard Clipboard.” Introduced last year, the built-in functionality stores copied text and presents it in a card-based interface. Users can organize and pin, while a simple tap will paste saves into the current field.

<string name=”image_info_clip_description”>Image from Gboard Clipboard</string>

Strings today identify what apps will support pasting images, including Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Messages, and other OEM SMS/MMS clients. When support isn’t available, Gboard will display an appropriate warning above.

<string name=”image_share_intent_whitelist”>com.android.mms, com.whatsapp, com.facebook.orca, com.viber.voip, jp.naver.line.android, com.android.messaging, ru.ok.android, com.tencent.mm, com.facebook.mlite, com.snapchat.android, com.motorola.messaging, com.google.android.apps.messaging, com.vkontakte.android, com.skype.raider, com.imo.android.imoim, com.samsung.android.messaging, com.zing.zalo, com.google.android.apps.docs, com.twitter.android, com.badoo.mobile, com.google.android.talk, app.buzz.share, com.random.chat.app</string>

We enabled the functionality in full today. The latest version of Chromium and the Gboard 9.0 beta is a prerequisite. It starts in the browser with a new “Copy image” button in the long press menu.

Afterward, pictures will appear in the Gboard Clipboard alongside other text saves. The Google Keyboard will note when an app “does not support image pasting,” but supported clients will let you paste by tapping the preview photo below.

There’s likely still a ways to go before this feature launches, but the Gboard image clipboard manager is remarkably useful. The Chrome copying capability alone is handy, but Google Keyboard provides a convenient way to organize everything.

Dylan Roussel contributed to this article.