Best Gboard Tips and Tricks
1. Type with your Voice
Gboard still holds the crown for the level of accuracy in terms of voice typing. Apps like Samsung Keyboard are integrating voice typing, Gboard has an advantage as it uses its own Speech to Text API. This makes voice typing faster compared with any other app. You can also download the languages for offline usage from Gboard Settings > Voice Typing > Offline speech recognition > Offline speech recognition > go to All and download the language you want to use. Having said that, this feature is only useful when you are typing in English. Though it has language support for a number of languages, I am not quite impressed with its recognition and it is still hard to rely on it.
2. Delete words and sentences with a swipe
This is one of the underrated features of Gboard. The delete button works fine if you want to delete a few letters. But if you want to delete multiple words or even sentences, this swipe gesture comes to handy. You can swipe left from the delete button to select and delete the words. But this feature is not enabled by default, you would need to go to Gboard Settings > Glide typing> Enable gesture delete. On the side note, you can also enable glide typing in these settings that would let you swipe on the keyboard to type.
3. Undo Accidental Erasing
There may be times where you accidentally delete more than needed, mostly you will be facing these kinds of situations when using swipe to delete feature. Anyhow, Gboard provides a small feature that can easily bring back all the words you just erased. Just after deleting the word or sentence, you will see the deleted part in the suggested words area, just tap the words and it will undo your delete action. This is an extremely small feature but can be so useful at times.
4. Get rid of unwanted suggestions
Google learns from your typing behavior so that it can provide better suggestions. But sometimes it learns the wrong spelling and starts suggesting that. You have the option to delete the words that are suggested incorrectly. Just type the word you want to delete from the keyboard memory(or dictionary), once it shows up in the suggestions, long-press a word on the strip and then drag it to the bin that appears. It not only removes the word from suggestions but also makes Google understand what to suggest from now on. In case, you want to delete every word it leaned from you, you can go to Gboard Settings > Advanced > Delete learned words and data. But remember, this operation cannot be undone.
5. Search Emojis and GIFs
Talking about suggestions, Google also provides you Emojis in suggestions strip related to what you are typing. Other than that, you also have the option to search the emojis and GIFs which is a feature not available on many keyboards. You can search with words like happy tears, Thanksgiving, Christmas, eye roll, movie and actor names, and it will show you relevant GIFs. You can also search emojis with the names of animals, flowers, expressions, etc to find the emojis.
6. Emoji kitchen
Emoji kitchen is a fun little feature that is first of its kind and recently introduced to the Gboard app. It mixes two different emojis to make one emoji Frankenstein. Google suggests you use these when you feel multiple emotions at once. Anyhow, these look cool even though I don’t use emojis that much. Here are a few of the emojis from the Emoji Kitchen.
It is still in the beta version, but Google will be rolling out this feature around March of 2020.
7. Text Editing made easy
Google’s Gboard has two ways to make text editing easier. You can use the space bar to move the cursor back and forth and place the cursor wherever you want, just like the iOS keyboard. You can enable this by going into Gboard Settings > Glide typing and enabling gesture cursor control. To put things in the next gear, open the text editing mode from the suggestions strip. It changes the layout of the keyboard with the move, select, and copy-paste buttons. In my experience, you can select a lot faster with this mode than trying to select by long-pressing the words.
8. Translation on the go
First of all, Google is already an industry leader in translation with Google Translate. It is no surprise that they are implementing the same feature in their keyboard where people usually type. The best part is, it is implemented in an easy way to use that you can totally rely on. Just tap on the translate option on the suggestion strip and select the language you want to convert to. Gboard will automatically detect which language you are typing in and translate into the language you have selected.
9. Switch between languages
Gboard is well-known for supporting a lot of languages. This is undoubtedly the best choice for people who want to switch between languages frequently. It also offers a keyboard for even small regional languages from around the world. You can also easily switch between languages just by long-pressing the space button and selecting the language.
10. Morse Code and handwriting facility
Apart from language support, Gboard even has hand-writing and Morse Code support. I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and the handwriting feature is always a welcome bonus for me. It is really efficient in recognizing the words accurately and you can write a lot faster, finish work, and go home. Implementing Morse code doesn’t make things any easier but it can be fun to use it.
11. Do a Google search in a snap
I like the idea of googling something right from the keyboard but I don’t mind opening the browser and google stuff there. But my views slowly changed and now, I can find links to nearby shops, restaurants, ATMs, etc and share it with friends within seconds. It is also useful to do a quick search for information like PIN codes, etc. The best of all, I started to search for tutorials right from the keyboard when I face any problem on my phone.
12. Delete Google Search History
Whenever you do a Google search on the Gboard for something, Gboard shows the recent 3 searches for quick access. But at times showing some searches can be quite embarrassing when someone uses your phone. Anyhow, Gboard has a small feature to delete the search by long-pressing the search query. It is always better to delete them as the keyboard is the most common thing used by anyone while using your phone.
13. Incognito Mode
Incognito mode is often taken for granted and no one really talks about it. When you are in the Incognito Mode, Gboard has this nifty feature where it also turns to incognito automatically and stops learning words and tracking data. This really makes sense while using incognito. All the keyboards should have this feature by default, but the options we have are either Gboard or Swiftkey keyboard. But you need to manually shift to incognito on the Swiftkey whereas Gboard does that automatically. The best part is, it works on all the browsers, amazing. As incognito is all about security, we cannot take a screenshot of it.
14. Stop sending your typing data to Google Servers
Gboard offers features that most other keyboards don’t and does so in a clean package. But there are many people who don’t like Google tracking their data. Gboard lets people decide for themselves. If you are not a fan of Google tracking your keyboard data and usage statistics, you can head over to Gboard settings > Advanced > and turn off ‘Share usage statistics’, ‘Personalisation’, and ‘Improve Gboard’ options. But also remember that features like word suggestions won’t work accurately like before.
15. Type in Foreign Language
Gboard for years had a built-in translator. It helps to quickly translate the typed text into another language. For instance, have a look at the following screenshot. I am typing in Spanish and the Gboard is converting the text to English on the fly. To activate it, click on the three-dots at the right corner and click on the “Google Translate” icon. Next, start typing and Gboard will automatically detect the language you are typing in. This trick comes really handy when you want to speak with people in a foreign language or just impress your friends.
16. Quick Fractions
It’s quite hard to type fractions or indexes for a number with any keyboard. But, not many of us knew, that if you long-press on the numbers, it automatically pops out the fraction choices. In case you want to put up a number as an index, again long-press and choose it the smaller icon. For instance, I have to write 10 to the power of 5. So, I typed 10 normally and then long-pressed 5 to put it up as an index 5 for 10.
Gboard Tips and Tricks
There are even many features like stickers that you can search and download from the keyboard itself. Gboard is also the only popular keyboard that provides the symbol emojis making it a full feature packed keyboard in a clean and elegant layout. Anyhow, the iOS version of the Gboard misses a few features like clipboard, text editor, handwriting functionality, emoji kitchen, etc. But if you are on android, Gboard is undoubtedly the best keyboard which not only offers all the basic features, but also few extra unique features which can come in handy. What do you think of these features, let me know in the comments below? Also Read: How to Automatically Delete Your Entire Google Activity
