Chrome OS Sharing Hub receiving a much needed “Copy to Clipboard” feature

With the release of Chrome 94, Google’s browser gained the ability to natively share content right through the Omnibox at the top. In the modern day and age that we find ourselves in, I was astounded to find that the desktop version of Chrome had no baked-in way to share links and pages with one click, and one would have to copy and paste that URL into a separate environment the old school way.

Now that you can simply click the universal sharing icon, sending things via Nearby Share or via any other PWA you have installed is a cinch. Sharing Hub is now getting easier with a new Chrome developer flag first discovered by Kevin at About Chromebooks. A “Copy to clipboard” option will now appear once it’s enabled on Chrome Canary.

Enable copy to clipboard in the Chrome OS Sharesheet

Enables a share action in the sharesheet that copies the selected data to the clipboard. – Chrome OS

#enable-sharesheet-copy-to-clipboard

Kevin believes that this awesome, new feature will appear in Chrome 97 Stable, so it’s still a little way out for most users. In order for the Copy to Clipboard option to appear after enabling this new flag, you’ll also need to toggle the “Chrome OS Sharing Hub” flag in conjunction with it since they go hand in hand.

Obviously, you can simply use your keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste, but having everything neatly packed into one modern button provides an easy way for the average user to handle this small but important and often-performed task. I’ve been ranting about the exclusion of a Share button on the desktop for years, and I’m glad to finally see Google heavily investing in it this year.