Copy and Paste CODE (not Action) in the Power Automate NEW designer

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Posted on by PA_Forum_User

Hello,

Yes, I know I can switch between classic/old and new designer :)...

... But can anyone PLEASE tell me if, in the new designer can one paste code directly to obtain an action / step ?

In the old designer, I can do this:

1) COPY (ctrl+c) the respective code snippet.

2) Switch to old designer

3) Go to:

4) And then to:

5) Perform the paste (ctrl+V) action directly in there.

6) Voila, the result of my code snippet - intepreted as (a) Power Automate action(s) - appears:

QUESTION: can this be replicated in the new designer?

My initial answer would be a No, since the Add An Action menu (in the New Designer) does not seem to offer the clipboard option.

But maybe/hopefully I am wrong so maybe on of you can (please) tell me if I am missing something.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ALL CONTRIBUTIONS.

Categories:

Building flows

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,969 Moderator on at

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Hi @PA_Forum_User

Yes, you can copy and paste in the new UI.

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eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Yes you can copy with pressing right mouse button on the action you want to copy . Or you can try pressing Ctrl + C when having the action focused (sometimes it doesn't work for me)

Then it should indicate that the action was copied
either below the action or on top right on your browser

Or

Then right click on the plus which you would add new action

If this doesn't work make sure your browser allows usage of clipboard on the site. In chrome it should be on the browsers url bar

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PA_Forum_User 71 on at

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Hello @eetuRobo and @Michael E. Gernaey

Thank you for your reply.

I installed a fresh instance of Chrome as Edge is my main browser.

It prompted me to agree to clipboard premissions and I did. I doubled checked to see that it was allowed and everything looked OK.

However, I still don't get the PASTE FROM CLIPBOARD option.

In this (failry recent) Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerAutomate/comments/1hraua6/comment/m75srr8/ I found this:

Could this be my problem?

Indeed, I am trying to paste a not-so-recent code snippet: the non-threaded version from here from one of the greatest contributors Paul Murana : Power Automate Flow to batch create SharePoint List Items

..........BUT AT LEAST IT SHOULD GIVE ME AN ERROR when trying to paste the "legacy" code.

In my case, the option for pasting (code) is COMPLETELY MISSING.

Thank you.

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eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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So is the problem that nothing happens when you click the "Paste an action"?

But yes your assumption and the reddit post is correct that if you are trying to paste code from the old designer to the new designer it will not work (or the other way from new to old). It won't give an error in my experience.

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PieterVeenstra 31 on at

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Yes, you can copy/paste on the new UI via Notepad

First Select the Copy action on an action. Paste the code into Notepad. You could now change this in Notepad if you need to.

Then You can open a new Flow create some random actions ( make sure that they are all valid).

Then copy your Notepad text and paste them in your new flow. This all works fairly similar (if not better) in the new UI.

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PA_Forum_User 71 on at

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@PieterVeenstra

Thank you. Your option does indeed work. In the new designer, if I copy an (new designer) action, than edit it's code in Notepad and than pasting it back, the new pasted action does include my code-edits.

So indeed, in my situation the problem was the code I was INITIALLY trying to paste, as this was made for/using the old designer and this it is (I assume automatically, in the background) recognized as incompatible by the new one. Basically, the designer auto-detects the code that one tries to paste and, IF THE CODE is for the old designer, it doesn't offer at all the Paste option of that old-designer code.

Thank you all.

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