Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly deleted long ago inside the clipboard backup folder

BillK95 — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 15:41:32 GMT

Hello. I performed a backup of my Galaxy A35 to my PC using Smart Switch yesterday night in preparation for the One UI 8.0 update that popped up a few days ago. As I was browsing through the files created by Smart Switch in my PC, I came across a folder named "CLIPBOARD", which has a ZIP file with the same name in it.

Inside this ZIP file there is another ZIP file named "\clipboard_backup_keyboard.zip", which in turn has another folder named "clipboard" (in lowercase this time) and two database files in it ("BackupClipItem.db" and "BackupClipItemV2.db"). The contents after unzipping are as follows:

Inside the "clipboard" folder there are hundreds of sub-folders. Each sub-folder seems to be named with random numbers, but it turns out these "random" numbers are just Unix epoch timestamps:

Inside every sub-folder there is a file named "clip" which has no file extension. All "clip" files are different from one another, as their file sizes are different. Opening one of the "clip" files in a hex editor reveals this:

Seems like those "clip" files are PNGs after all. I then used an automatic renaming tool to append the ".png" file extension to them and copied and pasted them in a different folder to take a look at all of them.

Opening the files with an image viewer revealed that all of these files are actually valid PNG files, and that all of them are some of my past screenshots.

At first I was baffled as to why Smart Switch or One UI has saved my screenshots in the clipboard, but I did not see any major issues with it. That was until I found out that some of my screenshots that I had deleted more than a year ago because they included personal details were still there.

I do not know why a significant amount of screenshots that were deleted are still saved somewhere in the clipboard's storage, which is seemingly inaccessible. The only clipboard I can access is the one inside Samsung Keyboard, and that contains only the most recent 50 or so text entries (something I can also see if I browse the aforementioned ".db" files using DB Browser for SQLite), despite the fact that I switched back to GBoard a month or so ago. Plus, some of the screenshots that are from April-May 2024 (when I purchased my phone) have GBoard in them, making this even more baffling.

If I had to guess, this is happening due to Samsung Keyboard having constant access to the clipboard, even though I have been using GBoard for a month or so, as I stated above. Samsung Keyboard also has this functionality where it auto-grabs the screenshot the user just took in the last ~30sec and imports it in the clipboard so that the user can then paste it inside the app they are currently using, which I think also plays a role in this (it probably saves it inside some cache which is never cleared).

As I do not have any access to the device's media clipboard in order to manually clear it, I think this is a privacy issue. Smart Switch should not just save the clipboard's media contents as unencrypted PNG files with no extension, and Samsung Keyboard should not have access to the clipboard at all if it is not being used. I do not know if this issue has already been found by another user and is known about, but I figured it would be best if I made this post.

The Smart Switch version I am using is 4.3.24094_1. And yes, I have contacted Smart Switch support through the email they provide inside the application.

Re: Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly del..

Tourbillon De La Vie — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:08:36 GMT

Smart switch is doing it's backup job. Samsung keyboard on the other hand shouldn't be storing clips in perpetuity and especially if not a keyboard default

Re: Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly del..

BillK95 — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 20:32:34 GMT

After doing some more research, it seems that all the screenshots that are saved are from the time periods I was (and am) not using Samsung Keyboard. Perhaps it has an automatic clipboard cache cleanup function which does not run since it is not a default. Whatever the case may be, yes, Samsung Keyboard should not keep the screenshots inside its cache when it's not the default keyboard.

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Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly deleted long ago inside the clipboard backup folder

Re: Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly del..

Re: Smart Switch PC backup "recovered" screenshots that had been seemingly del..