That keyboard is a tool or function What do we use the most on our phones? It’s no secret: we use it to write messages, emails, the address of a web page in a browser, and countless other things. Any tricks or shortcuts that improve the experience when using the keyboard are always welcome.
Android keyboards, especially the Google keyboard, are extremely good and versatile. It’s superior to the iPhone’s keyboard, though it does some things very well. Android has a keyboard Clipboard-like tools that make my daily life easierAnd always a good selection of functions at hand. And I’m still discovering really useful hidden tricks.
Secret ‘123’ Button Shortcut: Hold it
When you open the on-screen keyboard, it takes up a significant portion of the screen space. around A third of the screen becomes the keyboard (or even a little on some keyboards and mobiles). By its design, those responsible for this tool and the operating system seem to want the keyboard to have a compact but functional design, which intrudes on the screen as little as possible.
This is why The keyboard is divided into two or three screens: with one character key (normal QWERTY format keyboard) and two screens with access to symbols To switch between one and the other, you need to press a button: ‘123’.
Pressing this button changes the screen from the letter keyboard to the number and symbol keyboard and If you want to go to a second screen with more symbols, you must press a second buttonmarked as ‘=\<' which is above '123' (when changing the keyboard screen which is named 'ABC').
Number and symbol keys are not always visible to make the keyboard more compact
But do you know that? All these can be saved by pressing the button? Yes, the Android keyboard has a shortcut that is enabled by default and basically takes advantage of the swipe function, or the well-known Swipe. You just need to hold the ‘123’ button.
per Hold ‘123’ the second screen will appear Keyboard, which includes numbers and symbols, and we have two options to use the keyboard more quickly and efficiently:
- Press and hold the ‘123’ button and with another finger, press the number or symbol we want
- Slide the same finger with which we press ‘123’ to the number or symbol we want to write.
In fact, this shortcut works so well that even It is possible to access more symbols. After holding down the ‘123’ button, we can long press any button on the second keyboard displayed on the screen to access more symbols. Another way to do this is to slide the finger with which we pressed the ‘123’ button to another button and hold it down to bring up more options in the menu, as seen in the image above.
It may seem like something very simple, but those of us who constantly use our cell phones, both for personal matters and for work, are always looking for ways to save time and, above all, to achieve a more dynamic use of our cell phones. Holding down one finger to type a few numbers is faster and more efficient than multiple taps, especially if it’s something you do all the time.
Once you get used to using this shortcut, there’s no going back, or at least that’s been my experience. Android is full of these small, sometimes little-known tricks and gestures that can Make our life easier and save our precious time Which we will collect and we can use to do more, or have more free time to watch another episode of that Netflix series that has us hooked.
This article was originally published on Xataka Android in February 2024. It has been revised and updated again.
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