The Gboard gesture that's nearly doubled my typing speed

No one in my family or circle of friends loves typing on their phones. I don’t know if they have a strong opinion against it, but I had a strong dislike of it until I started using Gboard.

Google’s keyboard app didn’t radically change my views about typing on a phone, but it made me more lenient and less critical of typing on a screen.

The change of heart could be because I type less on my phone than I used to, and because Gboard allows me to make mistakes while editing a draft on my phone.

That’s one of the reasons I rate Gboard so highly and recommend it to everyone who types a lot on their phones. I particularly tell them to try to incorporate some of Gboard’s gestures into their daily typing habits.

I did the same, and it worked for me. But of all those, there is one Gboard gesture that nearly doubled my typing speed: backspace-swipe.

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What does Gboard’s backspace-swipe gesture do?

And how did it nearly double my typing speed?

Too many features can confuse users, especially if they are similar in nature. Google is notorious for following the strategy of having multiple products that kind of do the same things.

The Mountain View tech giant hasn’t done anything quite like it with its keyboard app on Android. Gboard is the only official keyboard app from Google for Android users.

Some of its gestures may appear to have the same functionality at first, but in reality, no two features in Gboard are the same.

For example, the backspace-swipe gesture seemed similar to the tap-and-hold gesture for selecting text when I first slide my thumb to the left from the backspace key.

While I expected the behavior because I knew its functionality beforehand from one of my colleagues, it felt magical to see the selected text disappearing after I lifted my thumb off the touchscreen.

That’s the power of Glide delete. When you slide your finger to the left from the backspace key, you are in control of how much text is selected and then removed.

You can drag your finger exactly to the point you want Gboard to highlight for deletion. This is far more accurate than holding down the backspace key until the desired portion is deleted.

I would often delete more than I needed to, but not any longer with the backspace-swipe gesture. With Glide delete, even if you select more, you can slide the thumb to the right to undo the mistake.

Since the backspace-swipe gesture deletes in bulk, if you delete more by mistake, you can always restore the full text by using the ‘Undo’ option that appears in Gboard’s suggestion area.

I do a lot of editing on my phone after I write my first draft in Microsoft Word on my desktop, and the Glide delete’s backspace-swipe makes my job way easier.

Gboard’s backspace-swipe isn’t perfect

Even the sun has its spots, and so does Gboard’s backspace-swipe gesture. There is a genuine chance of selecting more text than you intended while using the feature.

Instead of selecting a single word, it can select an entire phrase. It depends on the number of punctuation marks used in a sentence and how well you slide your thumb.

Another important drawback of this is that you can’t use the backspace-swipe gesture to select an entire paragraph for deletion.

How to enable Gboard’s Glide delete to use the backspace-swipe gesture

The Glide delete is available under the Glide typing setting in Gboard. Since Glide typing is usually enabled by default, you should be able to use the backspace-swipe gesture from the get-go.

However, if it doesn’t work for you, you can enable it by opening Gboard’s settings and selecting the Glide typing option. Next, enable the Glide delete toggle.

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I never used the Glide typing feature because I always found it a bit gimmicky. But I strongly recommend the Glide delete functionality to everyone, as it solves a genuine problem.

I also love that Gboard lets me use the Glide delete feature without turning on Glide typing functionality.

What else do I use to increase my typing speed on Gboard?

In the Glide typing setting, there is a toggle called Glide cursor control. I keep it enabled so that I can glide across the spacebar to move the cursor. This helps me fix my typos quickly.

When I type on a larger phone, I also use the one-handed mode. This way, I don’t have to stretch my fingers much to reach all keys with my thumb and complete certain actions.

Gboard also supports many other useful gestures that you can use to increase your typing speed, though I don’t use all of them because I don’t use my phone as a typing device that much.

The backspace-swipe is my favorite gesture, as it has the least amount of friction.