Gboard

Languages

The default keyboard is QWERTY if your preferred language is in English but from here you can change the keyboard layout according to your preference. The Keyboard options may vary depending on your system language. You can also select more than one keyboard to toggle between.

Multilingual Typing

This will only be applicable if more than one system language is added.

Preferences

Keys

Number Row

When this is on, a number row will always be shown in QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY layouts (In English). Settings may differ depending on the language preference.

Show Emoji Switch Key

This will show a key dedicated to accessing your emoji keyboard. When this is on the language switch key can’t be shown if you have multiple languages set up.

Layout

One-Handed Mode

You will be given a few options for using your keyboard in One-Handed Mode here:

• Off
• Right-Handed Mode
• Left-Handed Mode

Keyboard Height

This will adjust the length of your keyboard. This may be helpful if a taller keyboard is easier for you to type with or if you have smaller fingers that don’t go the distance then a shorter keyboard might help.

• Extra-Short
• Short
• Mid-Short
• Normal
• Mid-Tall
• Tall
• Extra-Tall

Key Press

Sound On Keypress

This will make a blunt clicking sound while you’re typing in keys on your keyboard.

Volume On Keypress

This will raise or lower the sound of the keyboard clicks while you’re typing in keys. This will only be available if you have Sound On Keypress turned on.

Haptic Feedback On Keypress

When this is on your phone will vibrate each time you enter a key on your keyboard.

Vibration Strength On Keypress

This will dictate the strength of the vibration on your keyboard when you type in keys. This will only be available if you have Haptic Feedback On Keypress turned on.

Popup On Keypress

When this is on and you enter a key on your keyboard you will see a pop up of the character you press directly above the key you’re pressing. This can help you visually see that you have entered the correct intended character while you’re typing.

Longpress For Symbols

When this is on you can long press on a key to use a special character rather than tapping on the symbol icon to bring up your symbols on your keyboard.

Key Long Press Delay

Drag the slider after tapping on this tab to adjust the time for your keyboard to recognize a long press on your keyboard.

Flick Input Sensitivity

This will adjust the sensitivity of the feature where you slide your finger to each character on the keyboard without raising your finger off the screen, rather than tapping on each key individually.

Theme

From here you will have a variety of options to adjust the theme on your keyboard.

Text Correction

Suggestions

Show Suggestion strip

This will display a suggestion strip while typing. A suggestion strip will appear above your keyboard and will have a list of suggestive word that your keyboard thinks you are trying to type. So instead of typing the full word, you can start typing the first few characters of a word and you can tap on the full word in the suggestion strip if your keyboard successfully predicts what you’re trying to type.

Next-Word Suggestions

When this is on, you will see suggestions in the suggestion strip that will predict the next words you may want to type using the previous words that you’ve already typed into the text box.

Block Offensive Words

When this is on, you won’t see any offensive or derogatory words displayed in the suggestion strip.

Suggest Contacts

When this is on, your contacts will be used to make suggestions if your keyboard predicts you are attempting to type in any of your contacts info.

Smart Compose

Smart Compose will save you time by cutting out repetitive writing like going back and fixing spelling and grammatical errors and it will suggest relevant contextual phrases.

Corrections

Auto-Correction

When this is on, words that are misspelled will be corrected automatically. This feature may not work with 100% accuracy every time but it does well enough most of the time.

Undo Auto-Correct On Backspace

When this is on, the initial backspace (delete) will revert the most recent auto correct back to the way you initially spelt the word. The second backspace after reverting back the the original spelling will then delete the previous character.

Autospace After Punctuation

After you use a punctuation mark (period, exclamation mark, question mark etc.) your keyboard will automatically put a space after so you don’t have to. This feature will currently only work if your system language is in US English.

Auto-Capitalization

This will Automatically capitalize the first word of every sentence written.

Double-Space Period

When this is on, double tapping on the spacebar will automatically insert a period.

Spelling And Grammar

Spell Check

When you misspell a word, the misspelled word will be underlined with a red underline while you’re typing.

Grammar Check

When this is on, any sentences with grammatical errors will be underlined with a blue underline while you’re typing.

Glide Typing

Enable Glide Typing

When this is on, instead of lifting your finger off the keyboard and tapping on each character individually, you will be able to slide your finger to each character while you’re typing.

Show Gesture Trail

While you are using Glide Typing, you will see a squiggly line that connects each character you glide to on your keyboard. This will only be available if you have Glide Typing enabled.

Enable Gesture Delete

This will allow you to delete words by sliding left from the delete key.

Enable Gesture Cursor Control

This will allow you to move the cursor (the vertical line that initiates the start of a text) by sliding across the space bar instead of tapping on the area of your text you would like to start from.

Voice Typing

When this is on, you will be able to tap the Microphone Icon in your keyboard to use your voice to type out a text. Turn the switch on next to where it says Use Voice Typing to turn this feature on.

Faster Voice Typing

When this is on, you can download a faster and more accurate way for your phone to recognize your voice. Once you have this feature downloaded, you can use this feature while your phone is offline (not connected to Wi-Fi or mobile data).

Assistant Voice Typing

When this is on, you can use Google Assistant to type and edit text messages, add emojis, and more.

Auto Punctuation

This feature will automatically add punctuation while you’re using voice typing.

Auto Donations

When this is on, snippets of your audio input on Gboard will be sent to google to help improve speech recognition technology for everyone who uses Pixels. This is not an intelligent learning feature that stays within your device and improves the voice typing feature for you directly in real time. 

Note: Your phone will record your voice to type texts and send them to Google. Not the best feature to have on if you value your privacy.

Clipboard

Your clipboard is what holds the most recent copied texts that you intend to paste somewhere. You will be given three settings you can adjust for your clipboard:

• Show recently copied text and images in suggestion bar

• Show items such as addresses/phone numbers within recently copied text

• Save recent screenshots in clipboard

Dictionary

Your personal dictionary will allow you to add words of your choice so your keyboard will know not to auto-correct them when you type them in. These could be words that you purposely choose to spell differently or uncommon slang.

• To add a word to your personal dictionary go to Dictionary > Personal Dictionary then select your Language and select the Add Icon in the top right corner of the screen.
• From here you can type in the word and a shortcut for the word.
• Tap on the Blue Check Mark in the bottom right hand corner when you’re done.

Emojis, Stickers & GIFs

Layout

Emoji Fast-Access Row

When this is turned on, you will see a row of emojis you use most often in a row on the main keyboard. This will help with easy emoji access rather than going through your emoji keyboard to find the emojis you use all the time.

Emojis In Symbols Keyboard

When this is turned on, you will see a row of emojis you use most often in a row on the symbol keyboard.

Emoji With The Physical Keyboard

When you’re using a physical keyboard, the ALT key will bring up your emoji keyboard.

Suggestions

Show Button To Add Multiple Emojis

When this is on, you will be able to add multiple emojis to your text with one tap.

Predictive Content Search

When this is on, you will be shown suggested content to browse such as GIFs, Emojis, Stickers etc.

Suggestions While Typing

While you’re typing you can turn on or off these settings depending on what content you would like to see suggestions for in your suggestion strip:

• Emojis

• Stickers

• Emoji Stickers

Share Gboard

If you want to share your Gboard with someone else you can tap on Share Gboard, select the Gboard you would like to Share, then tap on Share in the bottom right corner of the pop up and choose the app or contact you would like to share with.

Advanced

Share Usage Statistics

When this is on, your keyboard usage statistics will be sent to google automatically. This may help with personalization but it will also send data about how you use your keyboard and what you type to Google.

Show App Icon

When you have this turned on, you will see a Gboard App Icon in your app screen.

Learning

Personalization

When this is on, Gboard will adapt to your typing and voice typing by analyzing how you use your keyboard. This data will remain in your phone unless you have the setting below on.

Improve voice and typing fo everyone using data saved on your device

If you have the personalization setting fro Gboard above on then that data stays in your phone and only personalizes your experience. If you have this setting on, Google will collect your usage data and use it to enhance the experience. There are some important facts you need to know about this:

• Federated Learning

  • Your Gboard data will adapt to new words and phrases to enhance and personalize your experience. The actual content of what you speak and type is not sent to Google but it will sends what it learns to Google and is combined with learnings from other Pixel users.

• Ephemeral Learning

  • When you use you voice to text, your phone will use what it learns to improve speech and speech recognition for everyone. The audio data is never stored on a server and is deleted from your RAM within minutes.

• Conventional Learning

  • You can opt into sending snippets of your speech to Google to improve speech models and recognition for everyone. Audio snippets will be between 15 and 25 seconds and Will be stored by Google for a maximum of 18 months.

Note: Snippets will sometimes be listened to and transcribed by human viewers so yes there will be actual people listening to these snippets.

Delete Learned Words And Data

From here you can delete any stored Gboard information such as learned words and stored data on your device. This will revert your Gboard back to default and will not function like it did with the learned features.

Translate

You will have a few options here for the translation features on your Gboard:

• Enable Gboard translate feature when the conversation is translated

• Language(s)

  • Here you will see a list of system languages that you’ve chosen and you can choose which languages you would like translate to be available for.

Rate Us

From here you can opt in to rate your Gboard experience.