The guide

Everything Keyglow does, from install to the last setting, in order. Words in code are what you see in the app.

01install

Get Keyglow on Google Play. You pay once: 2.49 USD or EUR, and 1.99 in many countries. There are no ads, no subscription and no account. Keyglow runs on Android 10 or newer, on phones and tablets, in portrait and landscape.

02turn it on and pick it

Android keeps every keyboard switched off until you turn it on, so the first time you open Keyglow it walks you through three short screens, one job each. Each screen moves on by itself when you come back to it.

Turn on Keyglow: Open the keyboard list shows Android's list of keyboards. Switch Keyglow on. Android shows a warning that a keyboard can see what you type; that is shown for every keyboard. Keyglow has no internet permission, so what you type cannot leave your phone.
Switch to Keyglow: Pick Keyglow opens Android's keyboard picker. Pick Keyglow.
Pick a look: the keyboard opens above a try it field. Tap a look and the keys change while you type. Done takes you to the settings.

Skip setup on any screen goes straight to the settings, which keep the same steps under set up until both are done. The settings screen is drawn in the keyboard's own colours, so it previews your theme too.

To open the settings later, open the Keyglow app, or tap the gear in the tools row above the keys.

03switch keyboards

Hold the space bar to open Android's keyboard picker.
With two or more languages on, holding the globe key does the same.
Many phones also show a small keyboard button in the navigation bar while you type.

To go back to your old keyboard, pick it in the same place. Keyglow keeps your settings and words.

04the keys and pages

letters: Your layout, with shift, delete, ?123, comma, space, full stop and enter. The enter key shows what the field asks for.
?123: Numbers and symbols. =\< opens a second symbols page. abc goes back to letters.
number pad: Shown by itself in a field that asks for a number.
phone pad: Shown by itself in a field that asks for a phone number.
long press: Hold a letter for its number and its accents. Hold a symbol for its relatives, like € £ ¥ on $.
shift: Tap once for one capital, tap twice for caps lock. A capital comes by itself at the start of a sentence, if Capital letter at the start of a sentence is on.
emoji key: Next to space, if Emoji key next to space is on.

05languages

Under languages, turn on every language you write in. At least one stays on. The first time, Keyglow picks your phone's language if it has it, else English.

English
Deutsch German
Français French
Español Spanish
Italiano Italian
Português Portuguese
Nederlands Dutch
Polski Polish
Svenska Swedish
Dansk Danish
Norsk bokmål Norwegian
Suomi Finnish
Čeština Czech
Slovenčina Slovak
Slovenščina Slovenian
Hrvatski Croatian
Magyar Hungarian
Română Romanian
Türkçe Turkish
Català Catalan
Bahasa Indonesia Indonesian
Lietuvių Lithuanian
Latviešu Latvian

With two or more on, a globe key shows between ?123 and the comma. Tap it to switch to the next language. TalkBack says the new one.
Suggestions and autocorrect follow the language you are on, never a mix. If the suggestions look like the wrong language, tap the globe key.
With Keys for a language's own letters, like å ö ä or ñ on, a language's own letters get their own keys at the end of the rows, as on its national board.

06layout

Under layout: Automatic, QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak or Colemak.

Automatic takes the board each language is usually typed on: QWERTZ for German, AZERTY for French, the Turkish board for Turkish. Switch language with the globe key and the board follows.

07look and themes

Under look, pick one of three:

Match my launcher: With Hyprtile or Phosphor as your home screen, Keyglow takes the theme you use there. Change the theme in the launcher and the keyboard follows. The line shows which launcher and theme it found.
Tiled: Windows with gaps like Hyprtile: tiles with gradient borders.
Terminal: Glowing text like Phosphor: a console panel with a double frame and a title, bracketed keys, a blinking block cursor on space and a CRT beam rolling down.

Below it are 84 themes: Hyprtile's 49 and Phosphor's 35. Each chip is drawn in its own colours. Tap one to use it; that also switches the look to match.

If the line reads update Hyprtile to share its theme or the same for Phosphor, your launcher is an older version. Update it from Google Play and Keyglow picks up the theme.

08lighting

Every key is lit from below in its own colour, like an RGB keyboard, with LED strips along the edges.

light: Off, Steady, Flow in the theme's colours, Rainbow flow or Breathe.
which way it flows: Left to right, Right to left, Up, Down, Diagonal, Circles out from the middle, Circles in to the middle, Rotate clockwise or Rotate anticlockwise.
speed: A slider from 1 to 10.
brightness: A slider from 20 to 100 percent.
when you press a key: Off, Light up the key, A small ring round it or A ring across the whole board.
White ripples: Presses light up in white instead of the light's colour.

The lights hold still when animations are off in Android's settings.

09suggestions and autocorrect

While you type, the strip above the keys shows three words. The middle one is what space will put in. When it would correct what you typed, it is lit. The word exactly as you typed it shows in quotes, so you can always keep it.

Suggestions and autocorrect use only the language you are on. The globe key switches it.
Autocorrect: Off, Mild: only clear slips, Normal or Strong.
Ran two or more words together? Space splits them: ihavetogo becomes I have to go, idontknow becomes I don't know. Letters that a longer word starts with wait for a tap instead. Not in languages that write words together on purpose, such as German or Swedish.
Delete right after a correction takes it back, and the word you typed is kept. Keyglow remembers that and does not make that fix again. Tapping your own word over a lit fix does the same.
Keyglow learns your own words and which word follows which, for next word suggestions. It also learns where your thumb tends to land on each key, so the slips you often make cost less.
Hold a suggestion to never see it again. It goes to never suggested on the your words screen, where you can allow it again.

Switches under typing help

Suggestions above the keys: The strip of three words.
Space after a picked word: Tapping a suggestion adds a space after it.
Emoji for the word you type: An emoji for the word shows beside the suggestions.
Two spaces type a full stop: Space twice ends the sentence.
Capital letter at the start of a sentence: Shift turns on by itself.
Never suggest swear words: Offensive words are left out of suggestions.

Nothing is learned in password fields, in fields that ask for no learning, or while incognito is on.

10glide typing

Slide your finger across the letters of a word and lift. Keyglow reads the word before too, so after I a swipe near j, u, s, t gives just, not a look alike. With Show the glide line on, a line follows your finger. Turn it all off with Glide typing: slide across the letters.

11the tools row

With nothing typed, the strip above the keys holds the tools. While you type, the button at its left end brings them back over the suggestions.

emoji: The emoji panel.
clipboard: The clipboard panel.
text editing: The edit panel.
floating keyboard: A smaller keyboard you drag anywhere. See floating keyboard.
incognito: Learn nothing until you turn it off.
privacy veil: Hide the screen from people near you. See privacy veil.
settings: Opens Keyglow's settings.
hide: Hides the keyboard.

Just after you copy something, a paste chip with the start of that text takes the tools' place. Tap it to paste.

12emoji

Open it with the emoji key next to space or from the tools row. Tabs along the top jump between groups, with your recent ones first. The search key at the bottom finds emoji by name. Hold an emoji that comes in skin tones to pick one; Keyglow remembers your pick. abc goes back to letters.

13clipboard

With Keep what you copy for an hour on, text you copy shows here for an hour. Tap a clip to paste it. Pin a clip to keep it; the bin deletes one; clear removes every clip you did not pin.

Clips stay in memory, never in a file, unless you pin them. Nothing copied in a password field, or marked sensitive by the app, is kept.

14edit panel

Arrows, start and end of the line, select (turn it on, then move to select), all, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo and delete.

15gestures and shortcuts

slide on space: Moves the cursor. Hold shift too to select.
slide left from delete: Deletes whole words.
hold delete: Keeps deleting.
hold space: Switches keyboards.
hold a key: Accents and symbols.
shift twice: Caps lock.
hold a suggestion: Never offered again.
text shortcuts: Type a shortcut, like omw, and the text it stands for, like On my way, shows first in the suggestions. Add them on the your words screen.

16your words screen

Under your words in settings, tap Your words, shortcuts and blocked words. All of this stays on your phone.

add a word: Teach it a name or a word before you type it.
shortcuts: Add a shortcut and the text it stands for, or delete one.
learned words: Every word it learned, with how often you used it. Find a word filters the list; forget removes one.
never suggested: Words you held to block. allow lets one back.

Back in settings:

Learn the words you use turns learning off or on.
Back up your words to a file saves your words, shortcuts and blocked words as a file you choose, such as keyglow-words.json.
Restore your words from a file adds them back, on this phone or a new one.
Forget everything Keyglow learned asks for a second tap, then clears it all.

17one handed and split

One handed (phones): Off, Left or Right. A column beside the keys has swap, to move them to the other side, and full, to go back to full width.

Split the keys on a wide screen breaks the board into two halves for two thumbs on a tablet or in landscape.

18number and terminal rows

Under keys:

Number row: the digits above the letters.
Terminal row: esc, tab, ctrl, alt and arrows, plus / and -, for ssh and editors. Tap ctrl or alt, then a letter, to send that key together with it.

Both rows are on by default on a tablet and off on a phone.

19key size and haptics

Key height: From 48 to 72 dp.
Label size: From 80 to 130 percent.
Long press delay: From 200 to 800 ms.
Vibration: Off, Light, Medium or Strong.
Show the letter above your finger: A popup of the key you press.

Keyglow has no key sounds on purpose: a sound on every key gets tiring fast. It uses a soft vibration instead.

20incognito and privacy

Tap incognito in the tools row and Keyglow learns nothing until you tap it again. The strip says incognito: nothing you type is learned.

No internet permission: Android does not let Keyglow reach the network. Its one permission is vibration, for the key buzz.
No ads, no account, no analytics.
The words it learns, your shortcuts and pinned clips sit in its own private files on your phone, and go when you clear them or remove the app. If Android backup is on, Android may copy them to your own Google account; you can also back them up to a file.
Nothing is learned in password fields, in fields that ask for no learning, or while incognito is on.
The theme comes straight from Hyprtile or Phosphor on the same phone.

The full privacy policy is on the website.

22privacy veil

For typing in public. The veil shades the app above the keys so people near you cannot read along. Only the line you type on stays clear, and keys do not light up or pop up while it is on.

Turn it on with the veil button in the tools row, or Privacy veil under Keys and layout, where you also pick its look, like Film, Glow, Rain, Dots, Aurora or Grid. Taps and scrolls on the shade still reach the app. It needs no extra permission.

23floating keyboard

A smaller keyboard you drag anywhere by its bar, so it never covers what you need. Turn it on with the float button in the tools row, or Floating keyboard under Keys and layout. Taps outside it reach the app. One handed and split are off while it floats.

24codes

Type a code, then tap what it becomes above the keys. Nothing changes until you tap. -> becomes →, =12*7 becomes 84, :date becomes today. There are codes for arrows, maths signs, fractions, accents, sums, percent, units, temperature, dates and times, dice and more.

See every code, and try one, under Typing help, codes. Offer what a code turns into turns them off.

25spell check and autofill

Spell check with Keyglow, under Typing help, opens Android's spell checker settings. Pick Keyglow and other apps get red lines under typos, with Keyglow's fixes, in the language you are on.

Your password manager's saved logins show as chips at the start of the strip, on Android 11 and newer. Copy a code from a text or an email and a paste code chip offers it for a minute.

26settings map

The settings screen opens on a hub with a try it field and your status. Each row opens a page; Back returns to the hub.

Set up: Turn on Keyglow, switch to Keyglow, pick a look.
Look: My launcher or Custom: a face, colours, colours for dark mode, a picture under the keys, the CRT tube and how solid the keys are.
Lights and effects: The backlight: colours, motion, direction, speed, brightness, what a press does, white ripples and the space bar show.
Keys and layout: The board, a language's own letters, number and terminal rows, emoji key, key popup, split, one handed, floating keyboard, privacy veil, key height, label size, long press delay and vibration.
Typing help: Suggestions, autocorrect, glide, spaces and capitals, curly quotes, emoji and skin tone, swear words, codes and spell check in every app.
Languages: The 23 languages; with two or more, the globe key switches.
Your words: Learning, incognito, the your words screen, email addresses, the clipboard hour, back up, restore and forget everything.
Privacy: The promises, the one permission, and the privacy policy.
Help and feedback: Tips, this guide, the report page, the privacy policy and the credits. Every source and its licence is on the sources page.
More apps: Phosphor, Hyprtile and the other apps from Zanoshky.
Support the developer: Buy me a coffee opens the page in your browser. Keyglow has no subscription.