How to Add a Shortcut to Google Keyboard’s Settings in Andorid’s App Drawer

Google Keyboard has a ton of customization options, but every tweak requires a trip to its Settings menu. While there’s an easy way to access this menu from the keyboard itself, there’s also another way: through the app’s icon in the app drawer. Unfortunately, this isn’t enabled by default—but with one last trip into the Settings menu, a simple switch will make it possible.

As with basically every tweak to Google Keyboard, you’ll first need to open some sort of text field to bring up the keyboard, then long-press the icon just to the left of the space bar. Depending on which app the text field is in, it may show a different key than my screenshots, but the location of the key never changes.



Once you release the long-press, a popup will display with two options: “Languages“ and ”Google Keyboard settings.“ Tap the latter.



In this menu, you want the last option: “Advanced.”



The Advanced menu is shockingly simple, with just a few toggles present. “Show app icon” is the one you want—just tap the slider button to enable it, and that’s it.



Once you back out of this menu, you can jump into the app drawer. You’ll find a new icon for “Google Keyboard settings”—tapping that will throw you straight into the Settings menu. No more forcing a text field just to tweak something!



It makes sense why Google disables this feature by default—after all, not everyone wants to clutter their app drawer with even more icons, and the odds are you may only need to access the Settings menu once or twice. But if you like to experiment with new features or change things up often, this tweak can be a time-saver.