Universal Clipboard and Handoff can 'break' intermittently after an OS update. The issue often causes clipboard data to get "stuck" or stop registering across devices, particularly after a Mac has been asleep or when transitioning between different background states.
This is almost never an OS-level bug but rather something specific to your setup.
Since you have already completed the baseline troubleshooting steps (restarting, checking networks, and toggling Handoff), the next steps are variations of those.
Toggle settings with a restart in between
- On each of your devices, turn off Handoff in (System) Settings > General > AirDrop & Continuity. For example on macOS:
- Restart the device
- Toggle the setting back on and test again
'Toggle' Apple Account
If that doesn't work, then sign out of and then back into your Apple Account on each device.
Sign out of your Apple Account and iCloud on your devices - Apple Support
If the above do not help, then the issue points toward a background daemon or configuration file deadlock on your MacBook Pro. You can try these deeper, technical fixes to clear out the corrupted caches and revive the feature:
Force-Restart the Continuity Daemons (Mac)
The services managing cross-device sharing can wedge or freeze in the background. Force-restarting them clears their current state without affecting your data
- Open the Terminal app on your Mac (find in Spotlight or Applications > Utilities)).
- Paste the following command and press return:
killall sharingd useractivityd pboard
- Your Mac will instantly terminate the processes, and macOS will automatically relaunch them in a clean state. Test copying and pasting immediately.
Check and Force-Enable Clipboard Sharing via Terminal (Mac)
Sometimes major updates inadvertently flag clipboard sharing as disabled (0) within the deep core preferences. You can use Terminal to query and force it back on:
- In Terminal, paste this command to check its status:
defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist ClipboardSharingEnabled
- If it returns 0, it is turned off. To force-enable it, copy and paste this command and press return:
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist ClipboardSharingEnabled 1
- Restart your Mac for the preference change to firmly lock in.
Change Your iPhone/iPad Display Names
Continuity uses local device identifiers to route clipboard data. Sometimes, the update changes how local names are indexed, causing a routing mismatch.
- On your iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > General > About > Name.
- Change the names slightly (e.g., from "John's iPhone" to "Johns iPhone 15"). This forces your Mac to re-register the devices on the local mesh network.
Turn Off Third-Party VPNs or Local Firewalls
If you use a VPN or local firewall software (like Little Snitch or LuLu) on any of these devices, temporarily disable or uninstall them. Apple's Continuity security protocols require local multicast networking, which modern VPN configurations frequently block after security updates.
Personally, I cannot replicate the issue that you describe. When I copy your post on my 16" M4 Pro MBP running macOS 27.2, I can paste it into a Pages document on my M5 iPad Pro running iPadOS 27.2.
I can also paste it into a Word document on my other Mac (16" M1 Pro MBP) running macOS 26.7.1 Tahoe.
