You see a lot of your phone's keyboard. It pops up whenever you need to enter text or numbers, it’s your gateway to galleries of GIFs and emoji, and it’s a shortcut for voice dictation. It's an essential part of using a smartphone.

While it might seem like the Android or iOS keyboard is a baked-in part of your mobile experience, it's actually something you can change. No matter what your make and model of phone, you can switch to a variety of third-party keyboards, with different layouts, themes, and features.

Considering how much time you spend tap typing, upgrading the keyboard can make a real difference to how you use your phone. Here's how to switch—and some of the best options worth trying out from the Apple and Google app stores.

To switch your phone's keyboard, third-party keyboards can be installed just like regular apps. Open up the Play Store on Android or the App Store on iOS, search for keyboards, and you'll find a bunch available. Most are free to use or at least try, and some come with premium features you can pay for if you think you'll find them useful.

Once you've installed a third-party keyboard, it may immediately ask to make itself the default keyboard for your phone (the one that pops up whenever there's typing to be done). You don't have to do this right away, and you can switch between installed keyboards whenever you want. You might also need to tap through and confirm some security permissions when you first install a keyboard.

The Best Phone Keyboards to Try

Gboard (Android, iOS) is a good option to start with here. It's preinstalled by default on Pixel phones, but it's also an excellent keyboard pick for iPhones and Android phones not made by Google. It's fast and clean, works really well for GIFs, emoji, and stickers, and supports glide typing (where you swipe over letters to form words rather than tapping on each individual letter).

Then there's SwiftKey (Android, iOS), which is developed by Microsoft. As you might expect, there's Copilot AI integration built right in, so if you're stuck for something to say, you can use generative AI to do your writing for you. SwiftKey will also learn your writing style as you go, meaning autocorrections and suggestions get more accurate over time.

Typewise (Android, iOS) demonstrates how third-party keyboards can be a little out of the ordinary. It offers an unusual layout that makes use of hexagonal letter and character tiles, and which Typewise says can seriously speed up your typing speed. There's also support for multiple languages, AI integrations, and custom gestures.

You may be familiar with Grammarly from the web and the desktop (and from the recent news about its missteps), but the grammar and spell checker service is also available as a keyboard on iOS and as a keyboard extension on Android. As well as checking on your writing, Grammarly puts AI front and center: You can get writing suggestions from a prompt, for example, or change the tone of an existing message with a couple of taps.

If you're interested in customization options above everything else, then consider Mister Keyboard for iOS. It's stacked with ways to tweak the look and layout of your iPhone's keyboard, and to access features like emoji and the clipboard. Either pick one of the preset themes, or take pixel-by-pixel control over the keyboard.

Mister Keyboard isn't available for Android, but there is theming support in Futo Keyboard for Android. It also includes smart autocorrect and text editing tools, and prides itself on its privacy. The keyboard app doesn't ask for permission to connect to the internet, so you know that your keystrokes aren't being sent anywhere.