Microsoft Excel features a powerful “Office Clipboard” that can hold up to 24 different copied items simultaneously, allowing you to paste multiple distinct strings of data without losing your previous copy. However, this feature comes with an incredibly annoying automation: if you rapidly press Ctrl+C twice in a row, Excel assumes you are trying to use the advanced clipboard and forcefully opens the massive Clipboard Task Pane on the left side of your screen.
If you have a stuttering keyboard, or if you simply have a habit of mashing Ctrl+C a few times just to be absolutely sure the text copied properly, this massive sidebar will constantly pop out, shrinking your spreadsheet view and interrupting your workflow.
You can easily disable this double-tap trigger and banish the Clipboard Task Pane.
How to Disable the Clipboard Pop-up Trigger
You can turn off this behavior directly from the Clipboard pane itself.
- Open Microsoft Excel and open any blank workbook.
- Trigger the pane by pressing Ctrl+C twice rapidly, or by clicking the tiny diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of the “Clipboard” group on the Home tab.
- With the Clipboard Task Pane now open on the left side of your screen, look at the very bottom of the pane.
- Click the Options button.
- A small drop-down menu will appear. Look for the setting labeled Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl+C Pressed Twice.
- Click on this option to uncheck it.
- While you are here, you may also want to uncheck Show Office Clipboard Automatically to prevent it from popping up under other edge-case scenarios.
- Click the X in the top right corner of the Clipboard pane to close it.
From now on, you can smash Ctrl+C as rapidly and repeatedly as you want. The data will safely copy to your system clipboard, but Excel will never interrupt you with the massive sidebar again.