PSA: You can leak your whole clipboard through the lockscreen on Samsung Devices while trying to be private (Niche Case)

General
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Firstly, this might be a niche case, but if you have a Samsung phone and are using an alternative keyboard, you may have discovered that your phone still saves everything to its native clipboard. The most popular solution I found online is to enable the clipboard sidepanel (which is directly connected to the Samsung keyboard) to conveniently delete pasted information while on the go. But guess what? with this way you’re leaking your whole clipboard through the lockscreen by default.

However, Samsung, for reasons I don’t understand, by default enables sidepanels including the clipboard one, on the locked lockscreen (fortunately only in AFU mode). This is easily overlooked. If you’re using the clipboard sidepanel, you should also manually adjust the sidepanel settings to hide it on the lockscreen to prevent this.

I figured this out after spending 2 weeks while my clipboard was technically accessible everywhere I went and left my phone unattended (I’m into sports and regulary have to leave leave my phone around). This can also be a huge problem if your phone gets stolen.

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Just my two cents.

If you are concerned about clipboard, you might also want to utilise tools like automate and create a module to clear the clipboard every time you lock your screen.

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Hi, I actually tried an app from F-droid for this purpose but it didn’t work. Do you have any recommendation?

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If this is a concern, can you not just use ADB to uninstall the Samsung keyboard/clipboard?

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Unfortunately that move apparently prevents you from getting certain system updates

(Update: I was wrong and it does not interfere with system updates at all and please check the whole thread for more knowledgeable answers if you are a newcomer to this post)

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The clipboard panel is supposed to be locked when it is being accessed from the lockscreen.

But if you don’t use Samsung Keyboard, then you should disable it by executing the following adb command:

adb shell pm disable-user –user 0 com.samsung.android.honeyboard

That will stop the clipboard panel from saving your clipboard history.

Notes:

  • If you use a password instead of a pattern/PIN to unlock your device, then you should ensure the alternative keyboard which you’ve installed can be used to unlock your device after a reboot.
  • On older OneUI versions, disabling the built-in keyboard may cause Samsung DeX breakage.
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What I used was Automate (no it is not FOSS), if the tool you picked didn’t work, you might want to check whether it was restricted for background usage, or you misconfigured it.

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Not according to this.

I honestly can’t imagine a reason you’d be unable to update without the keyboard. Even if that is the case, luckily, it’s not that hard to reinstall it anyway.

Just make sure you have another keyboard already installed.

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No problems in my end getting updates without the default keyboard (disabled with ADB).

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Thank you all for these great comments. For now, everything is working fine for me.

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