Windows’ clipboard tool has one major drawback: it can only store a single item at one time. Copy another item into the clipboard and the previous item is lost. If you find yourself making frequent use of the clipboard – and having to constantly copy multiple items to boot – then you need to take a look at an alternative clipboard tool.

ClipX is one such tool – although it’s not been developed for quite some time, it’s an extremely capable clipboard manager whose main claim to fame is its simplicity and light footprint. Once installed, an icon resides in the Notification area of the taskbar, and the program automatically remembers the last 25 text or images (stored as uncompressed bitmaps) that are copied to the clipboard – this figure can be increased to a maximum of 1,024 although most people should find 25 more than sufficient for their needs.

To paste an item from ClipX’s clipboard, either click its Notification area icon or press [Win] + [Insert] to bring up a list, then click from the selection or type the appropriate number. More options are available if you right-click the program’s Notification area icon: search, manage and quickly clear the list, or choose Clipboard History to save the contents for future use.

By default images aren’t displayed in the list: roll the mouse over one to reveal a pop-up thumbnail; alternatively, open the Configure menu, select Popup and tick “Use graphical menu items for bitmap entries” to have the thumbnails automatically appear in the clipboard history. Everything is done from the taskbar icon’s pop-up menu, and it’s all simple and intuitive. This is the 32-bit version of the program.