LocalType details

Typing

• Three word suggestions, with the most likely in the middle. Tap to complete a word or replace a selection.
• Clear typos are corrected when you finish a word, using where your finger landed. Uncertain and two-word repairs are offered for you to apply. Press delete immediately or tap Undo to restore the original. In a scripted benchmark on two Pixels, with taps scattered 14 px around each key, LocalType fixed 134 of 200 planted typos where Gboard fixed 103; with taps scattered 33 px the two were too close to tell apart. Scripted taps are not human typing, and no speed advantage is claimed.
• A fresh sentence-start its been gets it's been after the second space, only when both words were typed here. Less certain its a, its an, its not and mid-sentence its been offer Apply. Possessives such as its colour, pasted or revisited text, quotes and protected spellings stay literal. Delete immediately or use the five-second Undo to restore the original; Undo keeps following text.
• One space just typed before a comma is removed: hello , becomes hello,. Delete immediately restores the space and removes the comma; Undo restores the original while keeping following text. Repeated function words such as the the, accidental capitals such as WOrking, and your not offer Apply; they never change automatically. Valid repetitions, possessives, pasted or revisited text, quotes and protected spellings stay literal. These conveniences stay off in address bars and private fields.
• Emoji suggestions, a full emoji grid, accented letters and IPA. Hold an emoji suggestion for variations; hold a letter and slide for accents.
• Swipe typing (experimental, off by default). Turn it on under Keys and gestures in Settings. Start a new word, slide through its letters and lift. After a tapped “a” or “I” you can swipe straight away; the space goes in for you. Two swipes in a row get a space between them inside brackets and mid-sentence too, and run together in a password or an address, and a swiped “I” or “I’m” keeps its capital. Tap another strip choice to replace the word. Delete immediately or tap the five-second Undo to remove it; Undo keeps following typing. English only. Accuracy and speed are still being tested. It works in every text field, passwords and web and email addresses included; there a swiped word gets no space after it, and it can follow “@”, “.” or “/” directly. Touch exploration keeps tap typing; when a swipe can’t start, the strip says why. Swipe paths and decoded words are not learned or logged.
• Spanish (experimental, off by default), new in 0.5.27. Turn it on under Languages in Settings, then hold Space to switch between English and Español; the space bar shows which you’re typing. Spanish has its own ñ key, the accent first when you hold a vowel, ¿ and ¡ on the period key, and its own corrections and suggestions, and it learns your Spanish words apart from your English ones. Its word lists come from film subtitles and haven’t been checked by a native speaker, so expect some odd suggestions and corrections. Slurs are left out, and swear words follow Suggest swear words. Chime, the optional models, proofreading and swipe typing stay English only.
• Slide along the space bar to move the cursor. Slide left from delete to remove whole words: the strip shows what will go, and sliding back cancels. Both are off in password fields.
• Web and email addresses, @handles, #hashtags and identifier-like words (snake_case, camelCase, anything with a digit beside a letter) keep their spelling.
• Voice input, new in 0.5.15. Tap the microphone key beside the emoji button and speak; tap it again, or any key, to stop. It uses Android’s on-device speech recognizer only, so it needs Android 12 or later and a phone that has one; on a Pixel that recognizer has no network permission. Dictated words are not learned or logged, and Android asks for the microphone the first time you tap the key. English, or Spanish while you type in Spanish, if the phone has Spanish speech.
• Clipboard paste and Saved text. Pasted text is not learned or corrected at the next space. From 0.5.18, a word typed after a paste cannot teach a pair containing pasted context; learning resumes once the keyboard has verified its own completed words. From 0.5.17, known tracking tags (such as utm_source and fbclid) come off links pasted this way; delete right after the paste, or Undo in the strip, puts the link back as it was copied. Passwords and terminals get the paste untouched, and a setting turns it off.
• Shortcut words, new in 0.5.18. In settings, give a saved text a shortcut word; type that word and the text is offered in the last slot above the keys. Tap it to put the text in exactly as saved, and press delete right after to get the word back. Settings can now also type a new saved text in and remove one.
• Remembered sites, new in 0.5.18. When you type a web or mail address in full, the keyboard keeps its site name (example.com) and nothing else of the address. One typed twice is offered when you start it again, in a browser’s address bar too, and a tap adds the rest. Nothing is kept or offered in password or incognito fields. Settings lists the sites with a remove button each, a switch turns this off, and Forget learned words removes them all.
• Predictions in address bars, new in 0.5.18. A browser’s address bar now gets the same word suggestions as a message, for the questions and prompts typed there. Verified questions and prompts teach word pairs as in a message. Automatic correction and typing logs stay off there, and once you are typing an address (anything with a dot or a slash) the words step aside.
• Password manager suggestions, new in 0.5.17 (Android 11 and later). Your password manager’s suggestions appear above the keys. Android draws them and fills the field when you tap one; the keyboard cannot read them. A setting turns them off.
• Capitalize automatically, new in 0.5.23, is on by default. Turn it off under Corrections in Settings to type in lowercase: Shift no longer turns itself on at a sentence start, suggestions there stay lowercase and a lone “i” stays as typed. Shift and caps lock still work.
• Add words, manage learned words, choose a number row and theme. Appearance → Raise the keyboard adds 16, 32 or 48 dp above navigation.

Little typing conveniences

LocalType 0.5.22 includes all 28 conveniences below. The four spacing/article additions and the optional swipe experiment are marked New in 0.5.22. Swipe starts off; turn it on in Settings under Keys and gestures to try it. Spacing and grammar fixes require words you just typed on this keyboard. Moving the cursor or changing fields cancels them. They leave pasted or revisited text, private fields, address bars and protected spellings alone. Undo keeps following text while it is available.

On a narrow screen, scroll the table sideways. Keyboard users can focus it and use the arrow keys.

Protected text: @handles, #hashtags, web/mail addresses, snake_case, camelCase and letter–digit identifiers keep their spelling. Slash and backslash paths are also protected from 0.5.21. Words you added or chose to keep, saved-text shortcuts, reviewed names and deliberate caps lock keep their spelling. Pasted text cannot teach a new word pair.

Optional proofreading

Chime, typing, correction and ordinary word suggestions work without these downloads or any Google service or model. For extra suggestions or sentence proofreading, LocalType can also use Gemini Nano where Google Play services makes it available, or an optional 2.4 GB Gemma 4 E2B download. Both run on the phone and both stay off until you ask. Tap the sparkle for words. Select a sentence and tap Proofread selection, or hold the sparkle to check the current sentence. Accept or dismiss the highlighted proposal; nothing is rewritten automatically.

The Chime model

Built in: 2.03M parameters, a 2.22 MB file and up to 63 tokens of sentence context. Chime starts on and remembers if you turn it off. With the model already running, next-word calculations measured 3.09–3.24 ms at p95 on two Pixels. This measures the model alone, not the time from a tap to text appearing. Its weights stay fixed while LocalType learns your words separately on the phone.

From LocalType 0.5.13, a spelling you deliberately keep or a suggestion you choose can appear after one use; ordinary known words need two uses. Personal suggestions use up to three preceding words completed here and occupy at most one strip slot. That history stays on the phone. Forget learned words clears it. These application changes do not change Chime’s weights or establish an advantage over another keyboard.

Try the browser demo · Write-up and shareable cards · Benchmark against Gboard · Training and measurements · Weights and model card