Swipe Typing: Dragging Your Finger Across Letters Instead of Tapping Each One

Swipe typing — sometimes called slide-to-type or glide typing — is a way of typing on a touchscreen keyboard by sliding your finger from one letter to the next without lifting it. Instead of tapping each letter individually, you trace a path across the keyboard and the phone figures out the word you meant.

For example, to type the word "hello," you would place your finger on the H, slide it to E, then to L, then to L again, then to O — all in one smooth motion. The keyboard watches the path your finger takes and predicts the word.

Most people find swipe typing faster than tapping once they get used to it, especially for longer words. It does take a little practice — your first few tries may produce wrong words — but the keyboard learns from your corrections over time and gets more accurate.

Swipe typing is available on Android by default through Gboard (Google's keyboard) and also through Samsung Keyboard. On iPhone, Apple added a built-in swipe option called Slide to Type starting with iOS 13. Third-party keyboards like Gboard (available free from the App Store) also offer swipe typing on iPhone.

You do not need to turn anything on for Android — swipe typing is already active on most Android keyboards. On iPhone with the built-in keyboard, Slide to Type is on by default in iOS 13 and later.

If you make a mistake, tap the Backspace key once to undo the last swiped word. You can always switch back to tapping letters for words that are hard to swipe, like proper names.