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oscarthedog Author

Level 1

8 points

copy and paste not working

MacBook Pro running Big Sur 11.5.2 stopped copying and pasting either text or documents. I can select the item or text and either hit command-c, right click-copy, or Edit-Copy, but when I chose to paste it somewhere, nothing happens. When I check the Clipboard, it is empty. I have run OS updates, restarted multiple times but still doesn't work. I have also force quit the pboards process in Activity Monitor and killall pboards in Terminal to no avail. The funny thing is that copy and paste works fine in another user on the same Mac. So the question is: What should I being looking to pull/delete from the this affected user Library to fix this?

Posted on Aug 20, 2021 3:21 PM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,449 points

Posted on Aug 20, 2021 3:53 PM

Boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support and see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and check again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

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copy and paste not working

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