The Safest Keyboard Apps for Android (And How to Verify Any Keyboard Yourself)

Your keyboard sees every password, message, and search you type. The safest Android keyboards are the ones that never request the internet permission, so your keystrokes physically cannot leave the device.

HeliBoard, FlorisBoard, and AnySoftKeyboard top my list. Gboard and SwiftKey are usable with cloud features off, but they still process in the cloud.

I'll also show you how to verify any keyboard yourself in three checks.

What Actually Makes a Keyboard Safe

I rank keyboards by what they can technically do, not by what their privacy policy promises. A policy is words. Permissions are behavior.

The internet permission is the whole game. A keyboard app without Android's internet permission cannot transmit a single keystroke anywhere, no matter who publishes it. That single fact does more for your safety than any pledge in a privacy policy.

Open source matters next, because it makes the claim checkable. When the code is published under GPL-3.0 or Apache-2.0, anyone can audit what the app does with your typing. A closed-source app asks you to trust the vendor's word.

Where prediction runs is the third check. A keyboard that finishes your sentences on-device keeps the model and your text on the phone. A keyboard that round-trips your typing to a server for better suggestions ships that text off-device.

Finally, I look at who pays for the keyboard and what their own documentation says happens to your text. Microsoft's SwiftKey support page states plainly that typing data leaves the device only when you sign in to a Microsoft account or enable Backup & Sync. Google's Gboard help page describes federated learning that runs by default.

Those two facts decide the ranking below.

Safety Scorecard: 7 Keyboards Compared

Play Store data-safety labels are vendor self-declarations, so I verified each row against the source linked in the sections below rather than trusting the label alone.

HeliBoard: The Safest Default

HeliBoard is my top pick, and its story explains why. It is a fork of OpenBoard, which in turn comes from the Android Open Source Project keyboard.

The project's README states it directly. No internet permission means the keyboard is 100% offline by design. Your keystrokes cannot be sent anywhere because the app has no way to send anything.

I verified the succession story myself. OpenBoard has not seen a code commit since December 2022, and its last stable release was v1.4.5 in 2022.

HeliBoard released v4.1 on August 30, 2026, and the repository shows commits landing the week I checked. The fork is the live project.

There are tradeoffs. Glide typing needs a manually loaded closed-source library, so the cleanest offline install loses swipe input. Features that depend on cloud services are simply absent.

For me that absence is the point. A keyboard that cannot talk to a server cannot leak to one.

FlorisBoard and AnySoftKeyboard: Open Source Veterans

FlorisBoard is the polished young option. It is Apache-2.0 licensed, privacy-respecting by default, and its material design interface feels modern.

The catch is maturity. Version 0.5.2 shipped in November 2025, and the project still labels itself beta. Expect rough edges if you install it today.

AnySoftKeyboard is the veteran. The project has been open source since 2012, and it has no internet access, so typing never leaves the device.

Its real strength is the extension catalogue, with a huge range of language packs and layouts on F-Droid. The settings interface is clunkier than either HeliBoard or FlorisBoard.

Pick FlorisBoard for a modern interface and accept beta bugs. Pick AnySoftKeyboard for maturity and language coverage. Pick HeliBoard if you want the best maintained all-rounder.

FUTO and Typewise: Privacy-Forward But Not Fully Open

The middle tier contains good products with asterisks. I use them happily, but I want you to know exactly what you are accepting.

FUTO Keyboard claims 100% offline operation, and the on-device swipe typing and voice dictation work impressively well. The asterisk is the license.

The source code is published under the FUTO Source First License 1.1, which is not OSI open source. The community can read much of the code but cannot fully audit every part or reuse it commercially.

Typewise takes a different path. The keyboard runs a local AI model on your device, and the dedicated Offline build exists specifically to keep every byte of processing local. I confirmed the behavior myself in my Typewise Offline review, where TrackerControl showed no network access for the offline build.

The remaining asterisk is that Typewise is closed source, so you are trusting the privacy policy rather than the code. That trust has served me well, but it is still trust.

The hands-on details for both of these live in my best private Android keyboards guide.

The Big Defaults: Gboard and SwiftKey

Most readers will keep the keyboard they already have, so here is exactly what each big default sends and which switches to flip.

Gboard runs federated learning by default, according to Google's own help page. Audio donation is voluntary, but donated snippets go to Google, and Google holds them for up to 18 months.

The federated learning switch is the sneaky one. It does not live in Gboard's own Privacy menu, it lives in Android's System settings under Languages and input, so a sweep of the keyboard's toggles leaves it running.

Microsoft SwiftKey is more private than its reputation. Microsoft's support pages state that typing data stays on the device by default.

The risk points are the Microsoft account sign-in, Backup & Sync, and the prompt asking to share typing snippets. Keep the account signed out and your typing stays local.

You can delete learned data under Account, then Data settings. The scary warning Android shows when you enable any third-party keyboard is a generic OS dialog, not an accusation against the specific app.

If you keep one of these, two related guides help. Clearing an app's learned data matters after you change keyboard settings, which I cover in does deleting an app delete data. Blocking network access per app is covered in cellular data on or off.

How to Verify Any Keyboard Yourself

This takes a few minutes, and it works on any keyboard, including one released after this article.

1. Check the requested permissions. Open Settings, go to Apps, select the keyboard, and open Permissions. If Internet appears in the list, the keyboard can transmit your typing.

2. Read the Play Store data-safety label, then treat it as a claim rather than a fact. Vendors fill in that label themselves. Use check 1 and check 4 to verify it.

3. Enforce the claim with an app firewall. NetGuard and TrackerControl block network access per app, and Android's own per-app network controls can revoke connectivity without extra software.

4. Type a test string and watch the firewall log. If nothing egresses, the keyboard's silence is confirmed, not promised.

One caution before you walk away feeling finished. A safe keyboard is necessary but not sufficient. Android itself and any accessibility service you have granted can read input regardless of which keyboard you use.

Final Verdict

The fewer permissions a keyboard requests, the less its privacy policy matters.

For the strictest setup, install HeliBoard or FlorisBoard from F-Droid and enjoy a keyboard that cannot phone home. If you type all day and refuse to give up swipe, FUTO Keyboard is the honest middle ground.

If you stay on Gboard, switch off every privacy toggle and revoke its network permission for sensitive sessions. Whichever route you take, run the four checks above before you type your next password.