Setting up a default keyboard on your Android phone is a lot easier than you think!
One amazing thing about Android phones is the plethora of customization options you have, including the option to change keyboards. There are a bunch of great keyboard apps for Android to choose from, so find the one that feels right for you.
We'll be working with the SwiftKey keyboard today to show you how to set a default keyboard on your Android phone, but the process is the same no matter which keyboard app you choose.
Note: This method applies to devices that run "stock" Android like the Google Pixel, Nexus phones, and the OnePlus 3. Your experience may be slightly different, but the general steps still apply.
- Download and install new keyboard.
- Go to Settings.
Find and tap Languages and input.
- Tap on current keyboard under Keyboard & input methods.
- Tap on choose keyboards.
Tap on the SwiftKey keyboard you would like to set as default.
- Read the Attention prompt that comes up on screen and tap OK if you wish to continue.
- Make sure the switch beside the keyboard has changed from gray to green.
Go back to the main language & input screen.
- Tap on current keyboard again.
- Select the SwiftKey keyboard. This will save automatically.
Make sure the keyboard is working by writing a quick message to someone.
Enjoy using your new third-party keyboard on your Android phone! If for any reason you want to go back to the stock keyboard or want to try out a different keyboard, it's the exact same process.
This article was originally published in July, 2016. It was updated in November 2016 with minor fixes.
Reader comments
How to set the default keyboard on your Android phone
And next will be article on how to get your grandmother to suck eggs. I knew AC was getting desperate for things to write about when I saw so many stupid user polls recently, but this is pathetic. I look forward to reading instructions on how to make a phone call or turn a phone on.
Posted via the Android Central App
Samsung KB is garbage. The predictive text on that KB has a 4th grade reading level.
Posted via the Android Central App
I like thumb keyboard. My favorite
Posted via the Android Central App
I'm testing the Google keyboard after using the Samsung version
Posted via the Android Central App
What phone is used in the picture? It looks gorgeous.
Posted via the Android Central App
Looks like a Nexus 5X.
on my Note 4 with MM, all you do is use a different keyboard and it's the default. you really dont have a choice anymore.
Matters not. Android System still puts a keyboard icon in the notification tray asking you to choose your input method every time you start to type something. What's the point of setting a default if the system is just going to keep asking you to select. Stupid.
Once you select a default keyboard it won't ask. And the notification is to quickly change the keyboards, which is great IMO.
Also, I think, in CM you can even set the option to not show that notification.
Fleksy is the best keyboard, period. It's the only keyboard that made typing on my mum's laughably TINY iPhone 5S bearable, and on my Galaxy Note 3 extremely fast and enjoyable. I can punch out multiple paragraphs at almost twice as fast as Google Keyboard on average in my usage, because swipe typing is miserable and often gives out there wrong words...
Love Fleksy. Too bad it's development is in limbo.
It hasn't crashed on me AT ALL, so that has to count for something, right? I mean, Google Keyboard crashes a fair bit on my mum's LG G4 on Marshmallow and a few other devices of mine...
This phone has the AC App.
Google Keyboard has never crashed on me.
No thank you. Third party keyboards and stock OEM's are far superior.
Posted via Samsung's beast S7
Samsung keyboard works best for me. Zero issues
Rodeo time, time to get er on down the road.
I've tried stock Samsung and Google, but nothing allows me to touch randomly and get away with it like SwiftKey. It seems to know what I want to type.
Posted via the Android Central App from my S7 edge
I use a lg g3, with cyanogenmod 12.1 installed. Every once in a while(it happens every week, n a half), it reverts back to android keyboard. I use swiftkey, and find it as good as anything else out there, but with superior customization options(deleted the lg keyboard, as fast as I could). Still haven't found out why, there's nothing in xda forums, that addresses it. What I wonder, if it's a effort to not enable swiftkey, as my iPad Air 2, on iOS, seems to have the same problem(charging phone, so I'm writing this on the air, with apples keyboard now, that iOS somehow kicked swiftkey to the curb again, even after I made swiftkey default ).
I would reply but my phone keeps asking me which keyboard to use...
Posted via the Android Central App
Have installed the Blackberry Virtual Keyboard (*.APK) on my LG Flex 2
Best keyboard :)
Posted via the Android Central App
Exactly! :)
Posted via my Note 4, missing bb10...
I've switched back to the BlackBerry keyboard as well on my g3. It's the one thing I miss most about my Z10. Every time my keyboard updates I get a prompt to set the default keyboard again. This has happened with swiftkey, BB, and all others I've tried. Dumb luck?
Posted via the Android Central App
I realize not everyone is a 'power' user but damn.... if you don't know how to set the default keyboard in Android... you got problems. Lol
Posted from my OnePlus™ One
I know how to, just never sticks lol.
Posted via the Android Central App
This could be for some former apples maybe? Or more basic users that just don't know yet perhaps. I know a few of those. A lot of my friends have iPhones. I showed them 3d touch. Blew their minds. They were clueless.
Posted via the power of my mind
TouchPal keyboard won my fingers a long time ago.
da best i rekon!!! wish they p off that app lock thou
I just can't use default Google keyboard
Posted via the Android Central App
I can't use anything else. Google Keyboard by far has the best text prediction on Android. The best keyboard I've ever used is Windows Phone. It is fast, accurate, and has the best text prediction I've ever seen.
Posted via the Android Central App
This^^
Audio Medic
Do you have the option of arrow keys with Google's keyboard?
No arrow keys, but just drag the spacebar left or right to move the cursor. Google keyboard also has quick delete and one handed mode and resizable keyboard. I also find its prediction to be superior for me at least.
Posted via the power of my mind
Agreed about the Windows Phone keyboard. Text prediction was so good on it.
Gave up on third party keyboards. System prompted me a few times a day to set my keyboard. It happens on multiple devices so I gave up Swiftkey. Stock is not bad at all.
Posted via the Android Central App
That's weird. Swiftkey works fine for me; the system leaves me alone.
You can't be setting it as your default keyboard.
Posted via the Android Central App
Always prompts me to set it as default. Weird.
Posted via the Android Central App
It's a problem with your phone, not the keyboard. I've used SwiftKey every day on at least 4 different phones now. And my wife uses it every day too. And neither of us have had any issues like this.
Stock keywords don't have the customization that SwiftKey has. Stuff like having the option to turn on or off the number and arrow keys are a must for me.
My wife is the same way, she actually returned the Blackberry Priv because that phone doesn't work well with third-party keyboards.
Posted via the Android Central App
Actually Swiftkey is aware of the issue from multiple people. Happens on different phones, but the are all Moto's. My older note never did it.
I miss the customization.... especially the number row.
Posted via the Android Central App
Just on Moto's eh? This clears up so much about my random fits of lag on my Moto.
Yeah but I use the beta version of the software too.
Posted via the Android Central App
Nope LG G3 and G4 as well. Really annoying. If Google's Keyboard (or even LG's) allowed me to have arrow keys, I'd dump Swiftkey and use one of those (but then only if it stopped the system from always asking me to choose my input method - so stupid).
Strange, never heard of that bug. I thought the SwiftKey on boarding walk through settings works really well.
I'm not crazy! Lol
Posted via the Android Central App
In place of arrow keys, both google and LG keyboards allow you to simply drag on the spacebar to go forward and backwards. LG's auto correction is crap to me so I only use google keyboard now, but I don't miss the arrow keys.
Posted via the power of my mind
Just forward and backwards? I use up and down to move quickly through a paragraph when editing docs and emails.
I gotcha. Yeah just left and right for now.
Posted via the power of my mind
I got the BlackBerry 10 keyboard ask, swipe text is awesome
Data_theNew_Greed
And it's not just Swiftkey. I get that with any third party keybard.
Posted via the Android Central App
I guess nobody proofread this...
They just do these how to's to try and get more search hits and more $$. Proofreading need not be done on these lol.
I guess lol
I guess
Audio Medic
I guess
I guess
Posted via the power of my mind