That “allow paste” pop-up on your iPhone isn’t a bug; here’s what to do about it
If you copy something in one app and paste it in another, you’ve probably seen a message asking “[App] would like to paste from [Other App].” It pops up constantly and feels like your iPhone is getting in the way. But before you go looking for a way to turn it off entirely, it’s worth understanding why it’s there.
Why does my iPhone ask to allow paste?
Back in 2020, Apple revealed that TikTok and over 50 other popular apps, including several major news apps and games, were silently reading your clipboard every few seconds, without asking and without telling you. That means anything you had copied, whether it was a password, a credit card number, or a private message, was being accessed by apps that had no business seeing it. There was no evidence that they were doing anything nefarious, but the fact that they could was concerning.
Apple responded by first showing a small notification banner, and then, in iOS 16, adding the permission pop-up you see today. It lets you know when an app accesses what you’ve copied and gives you the choice to allow it or not.
For example, if you use the calendar app Fantastical, it checks your clipboard to see if you’ve copied something that looks like an event, a date, time, or location, so it can offer to add it to your calendar for you. For some, that’s a perfectly helpful reason to read your clipboard, but your iPhone doesn’t know the difference between that and an app snooping on your data. So it asks you either way.
How do I stop the paste pop-up for specific apps?
If there’s an app where you paste frequently and you trust it, or if you don’t want to give it access to your clipboard at all, you can tell your iPhone to stop asking:
Open Settings
Tap Apps (all the way at the bottom)
Scroll down to find the app (for example, Notes or Chrome)
Tap on the app
Look for Paste from Other Apps
Change it to Allow (to give the app open access) or Deny (so that the app can never automatically read your clipboard)
That’s it. The pop-up will stop for that app. From now on, whenever the app reads your clipboard, you will see a brief floating banner alerting you that it was accessed. Or if you have denied access, you can still paste manually by tapping and holding if the app was written properly.
One catch: not every app includes this setting. It depends on how the app’s developer built it. If you don’t see “Paste from Other Apps” listed under a particular app, there’s unfortunately no way to disable the prompt for that app right now.
Should you turn it off?
For apps you use and trust, like Notes or your email app, go ahead and set them to Allow. You paste in these apps all the time, the constant pop-ups slow you down, and they are apps you already trust with sensitive data. Or set it to Deny if you only want to paste manually. Some apps don’t work well with that setting, so you might need to experiment to see which setting meets your needs.
But I’d recommend leaving it on Ask for apps you don’t use as often, especially social media apps or anything you’re not 100% sure about. That way, your iPhone will still alert you if an app tries to read your clipboard when it shouldn’t be, and you can easily paste when you intend to.
There is no setting to turn off the pop-up for all apps at once, and that’s by design. Apple wants you to make the choice app by app, so you stay in control of your privacy.
If you have questions about this or any other iPhone setting, I’m happy to help. I offer one-on-one tech tutoring sessions in-person in San Francisco and via Zoom anywhere. Sometimes a quick session is all it takes to get your phone working the way you want it to.
