Swipe typing and gestures

Swipe typing

Settings path: Home › Gestures

Trace a word by gliding across the letters. Lift to insert it. Tapping still works normally. Tap Shift before starting a word to give it a capital, or use Caps Lock for the whole word. Words with a clear dictionary capitalization, such as Monday and January in English, keep that spelling.

Tapping still works while swipe typing is on, and you can mix the two inside a single word. For accented words, trace the base letters when your layout has no dedicated accented key; for example, Vietnamese được follows d-u-o-c. Select Vietnamese in Languages for Vietnamese predictions.

Two-thumb swipe typing

Clink keeps one word alive while either participating thumb remains on the keyboard. Both thumbs can glide at the same time, and either can lift first. Lift the last thumb to insert the word. Once both are up, a new glide starts a new word.

Turn on Two-thumb word composition in Gestures. You can mix taps and slides inside the same word. For a phrase or sentence in one continuous glide, also turn on Multi-word swipe. Check the suggestion bar before continuing if the words are not what you intended.

Cursor

Hold the space bar and the keys become a trackpad. Glide anywhere.

Let go and the cursor stays where you left it. Nothing is selected and nothing is deleted, so it is safe to hunt around for the spot you want.

Backspace

Swipe left on the backspace key to delete a whole word. Keep dragging for more.

• Swipe delete

Long-press alternates

Hold the key to pop up a bar of extra characters or panels, like Gboard's accents. With accent popups enabled, the selected language’s letters remain available on QWERTY and custom layouts. For Polish, hold a for ą, l for ł, o for ó, or s for ś. Per-key choices and removed alternates still apply.

Custom text keys can hold alternatives to a whole string, including letter clusters such as ts and hrr. Configure them in the custom layout’s key editor under Hold. Cluster keys with alternatives insert the selected text on release, so the hold never leaves a partial cluster in your text.

Flick straight down on a key to insert its first long-press variant instantly.

• Accents

To remove an unwanted preset alternative, customize the layout, select the key and open Hold. Tap the × beside the character. The change is saved for that key, including its uppercase form; you can add it back later.

Language switch

Swipe up on the Return key to change language. The keys change with it.

With the Language Switcher plugin enabled, you can also change languages by swiping the space bar in your chosen directions. Tapping still types a space, and swipe typing on letters stays available. Directions you leave off keep cursor control; with only one enabled language, every direction keeps cursor control. A cursor drag already in progress keeps moving the cursor. On iOS, holding Shift while dragging the space bar still selects text.

• Typing in more than one language