The native keyboard in the recent One UI is doing a lot better nowadays.
It is the primary interface for an ambient ecosystem, taking care of real-time translation, tone rewriting, and generative AI.
The problem is that despite how powerful this new engine is, the factory setup is suboptimal.
To make the keyboard truly elite, you need to strip it back to its core, rebuild it using the Good Lock ecosystem, and adjust some settings. Here’s how to do it.
How to create and send AI stickers with Samsung Keyboard
Use prompt-based generation to allow your stickers to come to life
Getting the most out of Samsung Keyboard features
Samsung’s keyboard hides a lot behind the scenes. You’ll find settings to switch on and make life easier, and a few you might want to turn off to stop things from getting in your way.
Save screenshots to your clipboard for easy access
Samsung’s clipboard management is powerful. Samsung keeps it around like a database. To fully use it, there’s a way to save screenshots to the clipboard as well.
Tap the gear icon on your keyboard, go into Samsung Keyboard settings, and switch on Save screenshots to clipboard.
When that’s turned on, every screenshot you take will save to your clipboard and stay there even after you copy something else.
Tame Samsung’s aggressive autocorrect
Samsung’s Auto replace feature has long been a weak spot.
Competitors like Gboard have evolved predictive engines powered by neural language models that understand context, yet Samsung’s engine continues to overcorrect.
Moreover, when Auto replace is running, the keyboard can become laggy. Now, we don’t have to kill off predictive text altogether, but we must free it from the spacebar.
By keeping Predictive Text on but toggling Auto replace off, we still get that helpful suggestion bar above the keys without the keyboard hijacking the sentences.
To do so, tap the gear icon on your keyboard and toggle it off.
Make your keyboard visible in bright light with High Contrast
When you’re outdoors and dealing with screen glare, regular keyboard themes can fade out, causing more typos as the key edges blur together.
With High Contrast turned on, there’s more separation between the keys and the background.
Add a dark theme, and the characters pop like never before, especially on OLED panels like the ones on the Galaxy S25.
Tap the gear icon on your keyboard, scroll to the Style and layout section, and toggle on High contrast keyboard to improve visibility with distinct colors.
Keep AI writing features within reach
One of the biggest reasons to stick with the Samsung Keyboard is the Writing Assist suite. Samsung has baked its AI features into the core typing experience.
Don’t forget to pin the AI to your toolbar if it’s not there yet. Tap the three dots (ellipsis) on the keyboard toolbar, then drag and drop the Writing Assist icon (the three stars) onto the main bar.
Fine-tune your keyboard speed and responsiveness
By default, the Samsung Keyboard is tuned for safety, not speed. That’s why backspace feels a bit laggy, and alternate characters — like numbers on the top row — don’t trigger as quickly as you expect.
Go into keyboard settings and tap Swipe, touch, and feedback. To speed things up, switch the backspace from Normal to Fast.
While you’re there, check the Touch and Hold Delay, which usually defaults to 0.3 seconds. Bring that down to Short (0.2 seconds).
The secret weapon: Keys Cafe and the Structural Rebuild
Keys Cafe is a full-blown keyboard construction module in the Good Lock app, letting you build the exact typing experience you want.
Customize your layout for fewer typing errors
The period key is tiny and causes accidental taps when you try to tap the spacebar. With Keys Cafe, you can min-max your layout to match your hand size.
Try using the Make your own keyboard feature to make the period key 20% bigger. It saves you from accidental taps.
Put your favorite keyboard symbols all in one place
Most mobile keyboards force you to flip through multiple symbol pages just to find things like the em dash (—), degree symbol (°), or currency signs.
Keys Cafe lets you build a completely custom symbol page. I recommend putting all your frequently used symbols in one place.
Save time with custom text shortcuts
Text shortcuts let you map chunks of text to letters. For example, mapping “@@” to your email or “addr” to your full home address can save you minutes of typing every day.
Since this data syncs with Samsung Cloud, your shortcuts follow you to your next Samsung Galaxy device. You can even have your own personal dictionary.
Get a pro-level keyboard in under 15 minutes
Samsung’s keyboard in One UI 8 is loaded with features, but straight out of the box, it kind of trips over itself. The layout feels busy, keys aren’t where you expect them, and little annoyances start stacking up.
It’s not bad, just unfinished. Give yourself 15 minutes in Keys Cafe and the keyboard settings, and you end up with a keyboard like it was made for you.
