Frequently asked questions

Flikzi is a keyboard app for Android. The letters are in the QWERTY places you already know, on a honeycomb of hexagon keys, and flicks do the work of the extra keys: flick a letter up for its capital, flick it down for the digit or mark drawn under it, and swipe the space bar to delete. You can type roughly, because the autocorrect reads where each tap landed and fixes the word when you press space. Suggestions, autocorrect, voice typing, Chinese pinyin and emoji all run on your phone, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Hexagons fit together with no gaps, so every touch lands on a key, and Flikzi gives it to the key whose centre is nearest. Each row sits half a key further in than the one above, which is how the letters of a QWERTY keyboard are staggered anyway. There is no shift key and no backspace key in the rows, so ?123 and emoji sit at the ends of the middle row, the comma, full stop and enter keys beside the bottom letters, and the space bar gets a row to itself. Why hexagons.

Yes. The letters are in the usual QWERTY rows of 10, 9 and 7, so there is no new layout to learn. What is different is around them: a flick up on a letter types its capital, a flick down types a digit or a mark, and the space bar deletes with a swipe. Russian and Ukrainian use the ЙЦУКЕН rows of a computer keyboard, and Korean the two-set layout.

Yes. Flikzi is on Google Play for Android phones, foldables and tablets with Android 7.0 or later. It is free to download. Get Flikzi on Google Play.

Flikzi is free to download, with no ads and no data collection. The free version is a complete keyboard in one language: every flick, autocorrect, suggestions, glide typing, emoji, one-handed mode and the colour themes. Flikzi Pro is an optional one-time purchase of US$4.99 before tax (Google Play shows the price in your currency). It adds all 23 languages at once, the split keyboard for foldables and tablets, voice typing, clipboard keys beside the space bar (copy, cut, paste, select all and undo, each of which you can set to another action or to text of your own), a clipboard history and your own text shortcuts. Every new install gets 14 days of Pro free, and there is no subscription.

Open the Flikzi app and use Help shape Flikzi: Suggest a feature, or Something not working? Each opens an email to hello@flikzi.com in your own mail app, so you see everything before you send it; a problem report includes the Flikzi version and your phone model, never anything you typed. We read every message and reply to each one, and ideas that keep coming up move up our list. The ideas on our list.

No. Flikzi is an Android keyboard. It works on Android phones, foldables and tablets running Android 7.0 or newer.

Flikzi is made by Huper Technology Pte Ltd, a small software company in Singapore. You can reach us at hello@flikzi.com.

No. Flikzi is a closed-source app. Its pinyin engine and much of its word data come from the Android Open Source Project under the Apache License 2.0, and the full credits are on the licences page and in the app.

No. Nothing you type leaves your phone. Autocorrect, suggestions, voice typing, pinyin and emoji suggestions are all worked out on the phone itself, and your text is never sent to us or to anyone else. Flikzi also has no internet permission, so it has no way to send anything. How the privacy works.

No. The promise is about what you type: it never leaves your phone. Flikzi also has no internet permission, so today it can't go online at all; when you buy Pro, the Play Store app does the talking, which is why Flikzi has the Google Play billing permission. If a later version ever needs the network for something that has nothing to do with your typing, your typing still stays on your phone, the change will show on the app's Permissions screen, and our privacy policy will say exactly what is sent before that version ships.

Two, both optional and both off until you turn the feature on. Microphone is for voice typing: Android asks the first time you tap the mic, and your voice is turned into text on the phone. Contacts is for the setting Contacts' email addresses: with it on, Flikzi offers your contacts' addresses while you type one, and reads them on the phone only. Refuse either and the rest of Flikzi works as before. Flikzi also holds the Google Play billing permission, which lets the Play Store app sell Flikzi Pro, and it has no internet permission. Privacy policy.

Open Settings, then Apps, then Flikzi, then Permissions. Android lists what Flikzi may use there: Contacts and Microphone, both under "Not allowed" until you allow them. On Google Play, "App permissions" in the listing's "About this app" section shows every permission an app declares. Flikzi's list has no internet or network access, and without that permission Android does not let an app reach the internet.

Android shows the same warning for every keyboard you add, because any keyboard sees the text you type. The warning does not say whether a keyboard sends that text anywhere. Flikzi does not: what you type stays on your phone.

Yes, on your phone only. Flikzi learns the words you type, so your own words and names come first next time, and which word you type after which, so your own phrases show up as next-word suggestions. It learns where your thumbs tend to land on each key, as a few numbers per key and no text, so the autocorrect reads your taps better. It also remembers the whole email addresses you type, so you can fill one in from its first letters. Delete a word straight after typing it and Flikzi forgets it learned it. Everything stays in the app's private storage, is never uploaded, and Forget learned words in settings clears it. Nothing is learned in password fields, or where an app asks keyboards not to learn, such as Chrome's incognito tabs, and in email fields only the whole address is learned.

Flick the left half of the space bar down to hide the keyboard. When Enter reads Done, Send, Go or Search, flick it down to start a new line instead.

Yes, with Flikzi Pro. Tap the mic at the right end of the strip above the keys and speak; tap it again to stop. Flikzi uses the speech recognition Android runs on the phone itself, so the sound is turned into text there and never leaves your phone. It needs Android 12 or later and a phone with on-device speech recognition, such as a Pixel. On a phone without it, the mic can open the phone’s own voice keyboard, such as Google voice typing; that keyboard may send the sound to its maker, so Flikzi asks first. Android asks once to allow the microphone, and the mic never shows in password fields. Voice typing.

Yes, with Flikzi Pro. Flikzi keeps the last 20 texts you copied for an hour each, and you can pin a clip to keep it. Tap the clipboard button above the keys, or hold the paste key, then tap a clip to paste it. Nothing is kept from password fields or from clips an app marks as sensitive, the history stays on your phone, and one switch turns it off and clears it. Clipboard history.

Yes, with Flikzi Pro. Add your own shortcuts in the Flikzi app, such as addr for your address or omw for "On my way!". Type the shortcut and its text shows first above the keys; tap it and it takes the shortcut's place. A shortcut that is not a word, such as omw, also expands by itself when you press space. Text shortcuts.

Flick the letter up. A flick up on any letter types its capital, anywhere in a word. Flikzi also capitalises the first letter of each sentence for you and uses the dictionary's own spellings, so I and Monday come out right. To change a whole word, flick the right half of the space bar up: once for Capital, again for ALL CAPS, and down to step back. Flick it up and hold, and ALL CAPS stays on for everything you type until you flick it down.

Swipe left on the space bar to delete one letter, and swipe right to restore it. Keep your finger down after the swipe and it keeps going, faster the longer you hold; turn back to restore instead. Delete straight after autocorrect changed a word and the letters you typed come back.

Flick the letter down. Every letter has a digit or a mark drawn under it: the top row types 1 to 0, the middle row @ # $ _ & - + ( ), and the bottom row * " ' : / ! ?. Comma and full stop have their own key left of z. For anything rarer, tap ?123: the same digits and marks are keys there, and a flick up or down on one types the symbol drawn above or below it, such as %, € or =. Hold a letter key for its accents.

Yes. You can type roughly: Flikzi reads where each tap landed, allows for a neighbouring key, a missed letter, an extra tap or two letters swapped, and weighs that against the words before. Your letters stay in the text as you typed them, and the strip above the keys leads with the word that space will use. It also puts back a space you missed (thequick becomes the quick), and respells the word before when the next word shows what it was (well be becomes we'll be). Delete straight after a correction to get your own letters back, and they won't be corrected again. In our own test with simulated English typing, where 43% of the words had a slip as typed, 97% were right after space; that is a simulation, and real thumbs will differ. A switch in settings turns autocorrect off. Autocorrect and suggestions.

Delete straight after the change: swipe left on the space bar once and your own letters come back, and Flikzi leaves them alone when you go on. Tapping your letters in the strip before you press space does the same. A word you pick or insist on this way becomes one of your words, so it is not corrected next time. To stop all corrections, turn off Autocorrect in Flikzi's settings; the suggestions stay.

Yes. Slide a finger over a word's letters and lift, and the word is typed. A line follows your finger, and the strip above the keys shows the word so far. The next word gets its space by itself, so you never tap the space bar between glided words. If Flikzi read another word, tap the right one in the strip, or swipe the space bar left to take the whole word away. Taps, flicks and holds work as before, because a glide starts only when your finger moves sideways into another key. One glide is one word. One-letter words are tapped, and so are a few short words whose two keys sit one above the other, such as see and ok: that stroke is a flick. Gliding works in every language typed by its words, not in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and not in password fields. On a split keyboard each half reads glides over its own keys. You can switch it off in settings under Typing. Glide typing.

Yes. Flikzi offers suggestions in every text field except passwords, including Chrome's address bar and email fields. In the address bar the strip also offers https:// and www., then .com and your country's own endings (.sg and .com.sg in Singapore) while you type; in email fields it offers @gmail.com, @hotmail.com and the other big mail domains. Nothing is autocorrected in address and email fields, so what you type is what goes in. Web addresses and email.

Yes. Flikzi remembers each whole email address you type, on your phone only. Next time, type its first letter or two in an email field, or its first three letters anywhere else, and the whole address appears in the strip; tap it to fill it in. The addresses you use most and most recently come first. To have your contacts' addresses offered too, turn on Contacts' email addresses in settings and allow Flikzi to read your contacts; it is off until you do. Forget learned words in settings clears the addresses Flikzi learned. Your email addresses.

Yes. Turn on Singlish words in settings and Flikzi knows lah, leh, lor, shiok, makan, paiseh, bojio, walao and about 230 more Singlish and Malaysian English words among the English ones, and how they follow other words (can lah, nasi lemak). It is on from the start when your phone is set to Singapore or Malaysia. Words it doesn't know yet, it learns from your typing on your phone.

23: English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Turkish, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Russian, Ukrainian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese (pinyin), Japanese and Korean. The free version types one language of your choice; with Flikzi Pro, switch on as many as you use in settings. Flick the left half of the space bar up to switch to the next of your languages, or flick up and hold for a picker. How each language is typed.

Yes. The emoji panel has categories, recents, skin tones and a search, and Flikzi suggests emoji for the word you just typed.

Yes. Open the emoji panel and tap Search emoji above it. The letter keys come back, and what you type is the search: piz finds the pizza, red hea finds the red heart. Tap an emoji in the row to type it, or press enter for the first one. Search words are in English. Search emoji.

Hold the space bar until it buzzes, then slide. Sliding left or right moves the cursor through the text one letter at a time, and sliding up or down moves it a line in fields with several lines. Lift your finger when it is where you want it. Swiping the space bar straight away, without holding first, still deletes and restores. Moving the cursor.

Yes. On wide screens, such as an unfolded foldable, a tablet or a phone in landscape, Flikzi splits into two halves for your thumbs: q to t, a to g and z to b on the left, the rest on the right. The words to choose from sit between the halves as six or nine hexagons on the same honeycomb, the one space will use outlined in the middle. In Chinese, the gap shows the readings of your pinyin letters, and a sideways swipe shows more. In settings you can make it split always, never, or only on wide screens. The split keyboard is part of Flikzi Pro; the free version keeps one keyboard in the middle. Foldables and tablets.

Yes. You can change key height, turn autocorrect, suggestions, emoji suggestions, voice typing, sentence capitals, the double-space full stop, Singlish words, vibration and key sound on or off, choose light or dark keys and an accent colour, use one-handed mode, choose when the keyboard splits (Pro), clear what Flikzi learned, and reset the settings at once.

Yes. Flikzi follows your phone's light or dark theme, or you can choose light or dark keys yourself under Keyboard, Theme in its settings. Themes and key sound.

Yes. In settings, under Keyboard, choose light or dark keys and one of five accent colours: amber, blue, green, rose or violet. The accent colours the space bar's outline, the digits and marks under the letters, and the highlight on what you pick. It is free. Themes and key sound.

Yes. Hold the emoji key or the ?123 key and slide left or right: the keyboard becomes narrower and moves to that edge of the phone, so one thumb reaches every key. Two keys beside it flip it to the other side or put it back to full width. You can also choose it in settings, under Keyboard. It is free, and for phones held upright. One-handed mode.

Yes, if you turn them on. Key sound in settings, under Keyboard, plays your phone's own key click on each key. It is off to begin with, and stays quiet while your phone is on silent or vibrate. Themes and key sound.