How to Use Incognito Mode in Edge Drop

To pause Edge Drop's clipboard recording, right-click its tray icon and select Incognito (pause capture), or turn on Incognito mode on the Behaviour tab in Settings. While it's on, nothing you copy is added to the shelf. It stays on until you turn it off, including after you restart Edge Drop or Windows, and it doesn't remove anything already in your history.

Turn incognito on and off

From the tray

1. Right-click the Edge Drop icon in the system tray (it may be under the arrow for hidden icons).
2. Select Incognito (pause capture). A tick next to it shows incognito is on.
3. Select it again to turn incognito off.

From Settings

1. Right-click the tray icon and select Settings.
2. On the Behaviour tab, under General & Startup, turn on Incognito mode ("Temporarily pause recording new clipboard items").
3. Turn it off the same way.

Both controls change the same saved setting, so the tray tick and the Settings toggle always match.

What incognito does

• New copies aren't recorded. Anything you copy while incognito is on never reaches Edge Drop's history or its files on disk.
• Skipped copies stay skipped. When you turn incognito off, Edge Drop doesn't go back and record what you copied during the pause. Only copies made after that are captured.
• Your existing history still works. You can still open the shelf, paste, drag, pin and search items you copied before.
• Copy and paste work as normal. Incognito only affects Edge Drop. The Windows clipboard itself is unchanged, so Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V behave as usual.

What incognito doesn't do

• It doesn't delete anything. Items already on the shelf stay until you delete them, clear them, or the Auto-delete timer removes them.
• It doesn't affect Windows clipboard history. If Win+V history is on, Windows keeps its own record of up to 25 recent copies. To stop that, see how to turn clipboard history off completely.
• It doesn't affect other clipboard tools, or apps that keep their own copy history.
• It doesn't turn itself off. Because the setting is saved, incognito is still on after a restart. If the shelf stops showing new copies, check the tray menu first.

When to use it

• Copying a password or recovery code by hand, for example from a document rather than a password manager
• Copying one-time codes, bank details or ID numbers
• Handling a customer's or patient's personal data
• Before sharing your screen, if you'll be copying anything private during the call

Many password managers already mark their copies as private, and Edge Drop skips those automatically, along with anything an app flags as excluded from Windows clipboard history. What Edge Drop does with password manager copies explains which flags it honours. Incognito covers everything else.

A practical routine is: turn incognito on, copy and paste the sensitive item, turn incognito off. The tray menu makes that two clicks each way.

Remove something already captured

If a secret landed on the shelf before you turned incognito on:

1. Open the shelf and find the item (type in the search box if needed).
2. Hover over the card and click its Delete button.

To remove a batch, open the clear menu and choose Clear last hour, Clear last 6 hours, Clear last 24 hours or Clear all history (click again to confirm). Pinned items are never bulk-cleared, so unpin or delete them individually. If the system clipboard still holds the item you delete, Edge Drop clears that too.

For ongoing protection, combine incognito with:

• Auto-delete timer (1h, 6h, 24h or 7d) so unpinned items expire on their own. See setting auto-delete timers.
• Clear unpinned on restart so each session starts empty. See clearing unpinned history on restart.

Check it's working

1. With incognito off, copy a test phrase and confirm it appears on the shelf.
2. Turn incognito on and copy a second phrase. It shouldn't appear.
3. Turn incognito off and copy a third phrase. It should appear; the second still shouldn't.

FAQ

Is incognito turned off when I restart?

No. Incognito mode is a saved setting, so it stays on after restarting Edge Drop or Windows until you turn it off.

Does Edge Drop show that incognito is on?

The Incognito (pause capture) item in the tray menu has a tick, and the Incognito mode toggle in Settings is on.

Is my existing history encrypted?

Edge Drop encrypts its history index with Windows DPAPI, tied to your Windows account. Captured images and the full text of long clips are stored as separate, unencrypted files. Where Edge Drop stores data on disk lists them. Incognito simply stops new items being written at all.

Related reading

• Clipboard Incognito Mode: How to Pause History on Windows
• How to Pause Clipboard Capture When You're Copying Secrets
• How Do Passwords End Up in Clipboard History?
• How to Pin and Unpin Items in Edge Drop

Sources

• Using the clipboard (Microsoft Support) — Windows clipboard history keeps up to 25 items and is controlled separately.
• Clipboard Formats (Microsoft Learn) — the formats apps use to keep content out of clipboard history and monitoring.
• safeStorage (Electron documentation) — Windows encryption keys protected with DPAPI.

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