* This post is part of iPhone Life’s Tip of the Day newsletter. However, it can be annoying when the floating keyboard pops out accidentally, especially if you don’t know how to return it to the bottom of the screen. The small Apple floating keyboard can come in handy for quick typing and better viewing on your screen, so it’s nice to know how to turn it on when you want it. You can move the floating keyboard around the screen by touching and dragging the grab bar at the bottom.
Another method is to perform a reverse pinch gesture from the center of the iPad floating keyboard. Your fingers should start close together and then spread farther apart, maintaining contact with the iPad screen the whole time.
Sometimes when you tap into a text field with the Apple Pencil, the floating keyboard will automatically pop up.
How to turn off the Floating Keyboard
While you can freely switch between the available onscreen keyboard types, none can be completely disabled.
Move the iPad onscreen keyboard
Tap keys or type by sliding from one letter to the next without lifting your finger (not available for all languages).
How to Fix a Floating Keyboard on an iPad
You can drag and position it, and it’s designed to make it easier to type with one hand. When you remove your finger, the keyboard will stop floating and snap into place. If you see two small keyboards floating over your app, you need to merge them.
If you select Dock and Merge, the keyboards will join together and stop floating. This will also turn off the predictive text function even when your Bluetooth keyboard is disconnected. If you’re still having trouble with your floating keyboard, or it’s unresponsive, then try rebooting your iPad.
How to turn off the iPadOS floating keyboard on your iPad
For example, you can Swype to type faster, something you can’t do when the keyboard is at its standard size. With a floating keyboard, you can also move it anywhere on your display and get a better view of the site you’re visiting. If you’re reading this, you’ve reached this point and wish to return to the regular-sized keyboard. Another option is to spread your index and thumb fingers on opposite points of the keyboards and bring them together.
Remember to avoid experiencing bugs; having the latest software version on your iPad is always best. It can be annoying when you want to use your Apple Pencil to fill out a text field only to see the keyboard get in the way.
All you need to do is tap and place a finger on the grab bar at the bottom of that little gray line below. For example, if you want to place it in the upper right-hand corner, you’ll notice how it drops slightly.
If you need to look for a specific topic, remember you can always use the search bar at the top left of your display. You can Swipe to type faster and not have the normal-sized keyboard cover most of what you have on your screen.
How to use or avoid hidden iPad keyboard options
Although you won’t find any mention of this in Apple’s iOS-keyboard help page or a separate introduction to the iPad’s onscreen keyboard, you only need to tap and hold the hide-keyboard button in the bottom right corner to get a menu to pop open with “Undock” and “Split” items. I do know that when I undocked my iPad mini 4’s keyboard with an errant swipe that must have lingered over the hide-keyboard key for too long, I quickly got annoyed at how the undocked keyboard sat in the way of Safari’s shortcuts to frequently-visited pages. It cleaves the keyboard in two while also moving it to the undocked position for easier thumb-typing, especially on larger iPads. Others, such as the option to have the keyboard’s letters appear in uppercase all the time, are squirreled away under the “General” section’s “Accessibility” category.) Like those competing apps, Gboard also learns your vocabulary–but Google says it stores that personalized data on your iPhone or iPad.
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