Gboard for Android Finally Gets Undo, Redo Buttons

Gboard, the default keyboard on many Android phones, is finally getting a proper undo button. Up until now, you had to use a Japanese keyboard to access the undo button, but Google has finally addressed that gap. With Gboard 15 for Android, you'll be able to use the undo button that, thankfully, works with all languages. 

How to set up the undo and redo buttons in Gboard

First up, go to Google Play store and update Gboard to the latest version. After that, open any app where you can see the keyboard, such as Messages or Chrome. Fire up the keyboard and tap the four squares icon in the top-left corner of the keyboard. This will show you all the shortcuts that you can add to the suggestions row up top. Undo should be one of the shortcuts. You can drag it to the suggestions row at the top of the keyboard to make it easy to access.

The redo button appears in the suggestions row, once you try to undo something using Gboard.

How undo and redo work in Gboard

Once you type something using Gboard, you can easily use undo and redo to, well, undo or redo things! The trick is to get the button to show up in the suggestions row, which may not happen immediately if you also have autocorrect enabled, since autocorrect suggestions populate here, too. So, to use Gboard's undo button, you can type something first, then tap the four squares button in the top-left corner. This will replace all the autocorrect suggestions with the undo button. Tap undo once, and you'll also see the redo button appear right next to it.

Gboard's undo is the equivalent of hitting the delete button on the keyboard once. You can't press and hold undo to erase a bunch of words quickly, but you can press it to remove the previous thing you typed. If you regret pressing undo or if you pressed it one time too many, you can use the redo button to restore one character at a time. The good thing is that the undo/redo feature works even if you switch to another app and return to the original one. Unfortunately, if you end up force quitting an app, then your undo history is wiped and you have to start afresh. This means that after force quitting an app and opening it again, pressing undo won't do anything until you type some more words.

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