Faster Typing on Your Phone: 6 Tips You Can Use Right Now

The fastest way to type on a phone is swipe typing, text shortcuts and dictation for anything longer than two sentences. The six settings below take 5 minutes to switch on and work on iPhone and Android.

Your phone can be faster

You type hundreds of messages on your phone every day. But most people only use a fraction of what modern keyboards can do.

Here are 6 tips you can set up in 5 minutes.

1. Enable swipe typing

Instead of tapping individual letters, you glide your finger across the keyboard. Sounds weird, but it's significantly faster than tapping.

• iPhone: Settings > General > Keyboard > enable "Slide to Type"
• Android (Gboard): Gboard settings > enable Glide typing

After a few days, you'll be faster than ever.

2. Set up text shortcuts

Type "omw" and it automatically becomes "On my way!" Or "@@" becomes your full email address.

• iPhone: Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement
• Android: Gboard > Dictionary > Personal dictionary

Best candidates: email address, phone number, common greetings, home address.

3. Train your autocorrect

Autocorrect learns from you. When it corrects a word wrong, deliberately retype it correctly. After 2-3 times, it remembers.

Bonus: Add technical terms you use often as text shortcuts - then autocorrect won't change them anymore.

4. Use one-handed mode

On large phones, you can't reach all keys with your thumb. One-handed mode shrinks the keyboard to one side.

• iPhone: Hold the globe/emoji icon, choose left or right keyboard
• Android: Hold the comma key > One-handed mode

5. Voice input for longer messages

For messages over 2-3 sentences, voice input is almost always faster than typing. The microphone icon on your keyboard starts dictation.

Modern speech-to-text recognizes punctuation automatically. Just say "comma" or "period."

6. Choose the right keyboard app

The default keyboard is fine, but third-party apps offer more:

• Gboard (Google): Best swipe recognition, GIF search, translator built in
• SwiftKey (Microsoft): Best at learning your writing style, multilingual without switching

On desktop, there's even more potential

At a computer, touch typing is the biggest lever: trained touch typists reach 40 to 80 words per minute (Wikipedia, German), two-finger typists about 27 when copying text. The complete touch typing guide shows how to get there. A quick typing speed test tells you where you stand today. And emojis on a computer have their own shortcuts: How to Type Emojis.

Sources

• Type with the onscreen keyboard on iPhone - Apple Support: slide to type, text replacement, one-handed keyboard.
• Use glide typing in Gboard - Google Support.
• Words per minute (Wikipedia) - two-finger typists about 27 WPM when copying.
• Anschläge pro Minute (Wikipedia, German) - trained touch typists 40 to 80 WPM in a 10-minute test.