Gboard’s new Android update ditches the period and comma keys

A new over-the-air (OTA) software update is rolling out to Google’s Gboard app for Android, introducing two new setting toggles to the virtual keyboard experience: one for removing the comma key, and the other for removing the period key.

As reported by 9to5Google, the update appears to be rolling out in stable form on Android devices with version 16.0 or newer of Gboard installed via the Google Play Store. Both new key preference options are toggled on by default, preserving the preexisting Gboard key layout and acting instead as an opt-in feature for those looking to manually enable a simpler design.

These new settings to hide punctuation keys on Gboard can be found by navigating to Settings > System > Keyboard > On-screen keyboard > Gboard > Preferences > Keys > and then toggling the Comma key and/or the Period key switches to the off position.

Once one or both of these settings are toggled off, the Gboard layout is dynamically shifted to accommodate the reduced number of on-screen keys, with a slightly wider space bar, and a newly-centered enter key taking up the space previously occupied by the dedicated period and comma keys.

A small but welcome Gboard change

The more keyboard customization options, the better

On the surface, it sounds strange to offer up toggles for disabling the period and comma buttons of an on-screen smartphone keyboard. After all, these two punctuation marks are among the most commonly-used and foundationally important tools within the English language.

However, in practice, the extra space-saving does allow for a cleaner keyboard appearance and a slightly larger space bar hit target, without actually removing any typing functionality. With the comma and period keys disabled, you can continue to insert a period by double-tapping the space key, and a comma can be inserted by tapping on the ?123 key and then selecting a comma from the secondary keyboard interface.

Overall, I’m a fan of this small Gboard tweak, as it brings additional customization potential to Android’s native virtual keyboard app. Part of the appeal of having an on-screen keyboard is that it can be dynamically adjusted to suit layout preferences on a per-person basis, and so I welcome any and all additional flexibility that gets roped into the experience. The way I see it, the more options available to the end-user, the better, so long as they aren’t unwittingly forced upon anyone.