How to start your clipboard manager with Windows
In Clip by Zaweba's Settings, turn on Start Clip when I sign in, and your clipboard history runs in the tray from the moment you sign in.
Open Clip by Zaweba's Settings and turn on Start Clip when I sign in. From then on, Clip starts by itself each time you sign in to Windows and sits in the tray, recording from your very first copy of the day. Turn the setting off again if you'd rather start it yourself.
It's one of the first things worth setting after you install Clip, because a clipboard history is only as good as the copies it was running for.
Why it matters
The thing you need from your clipboard history is very often something you copied before you thought about it. A tracking number at nine in the morning, a reference from an early email, a link you meant to come back to. If Clip wasn't running at the time, it wasn't recorded.
Starting at sign-in removes that gap. Clip is just there, quietly, like the clock in the corner of the screen.
Turning it on
Right-click Clip's icon in the tray and choose Settings, or open the main window with Open Clip and go to the Settings page. Turn on the start with Windows option. That's all; the next time you sign in, Clip will start by itself.
If Clip isn't running yet, start it the way you started it after installing it, then change the setting.
What happens at sign-in
Clip starts in the tray, without opening its main window. Your history is still there from last time, because it's kept in a local database in your profile, and pins and snippets come back with it. Press Ctrl+Shift+V, or left-click the tray icon, and the popup opens as normal.
Only one copy of Clip runs per session, so even if you also start it by hand, you won't end up with two.
If you paused recording before you last shut down, Clip will still be paused, because pausing is remembered across restarts. The tray icon shows grey with a pause mark. Choose Pause recording from the tray menu to resume.
Keeping it running
Closing the main window doesn't stop Clip. It carries on in the tray and keeps recording. Only Exit, on the tray menu, closes it completely. If you exit, it won't record anything until you start it again or sign in next time.
If Windows hides tray icons behind the small arrow in the notification area, drag Clip's icon out to keep it visible. You'll always see whether it's running and whether it's paused.
A sensible first-day setup
While you're in Settings, a few other choices go well with starting at sign-in. Check the popup hotkey, since some programs use Ctrl+Shift+V for their own paste as plain text and you may want a different one. Decide how much history to keep: 500 unpinned items by default, adjustable from 10 to 100,000. Choose whether to record pictures, file lists and formatting. If your history will hold sensitive work, consider encrypting it.
Then pin the things you paste every day, and add a snippet for your signature.
If you'd rather not
Some people prefer to start Clip only for particular jobs, such as a day of research or a pile of form-filling. That's fine. Leave the setting off and start Clip by Zaweba when you want it. Your history and settings will be waiting either way.
