Back Up Your Keyboard to Google Drive (and Import Your Gboard Dictionary)

You unbox a new phone, sign in, and most of your apps come back looking the way you left them. Your keyboard doesn't. Android won't restore CleverType's data on its own, so even with our old dictionary backup turned on, the most you got back was your words.

Everything else stayed behind. The address you'd pinned for pasting into forms, the custom keyboard theme with your own picture behind the keys, the sounds and layout you'd picked: you set all of that up again by hand.

That old Google Drive backup only ever covered the dictionary. In CleverType for Android 8.24.0, released October 17, 2026, we replaced it with Cloud Sync, a keyboard backup to Google Drive that saves four things over one Drive connection: your dictionary, pinned clips, custom themes and keyboard settings. The same release adds Import from Gboard, so the words you built up in Gboard come with you when you switch from Gboard to CleverType.

What's new

Cloud Sync: four things backed up instead of one

The old Drive backup saved your learned words and nothing else. Pinned clips, themes and settings had to be rebuilt on every new phone.

Now one switch backs up your Dictionary, Pinned clipboard (text and images), custom Themes (with their pictures) and Keyboard settings (layout, sounds and more). Install CleverType on a new phone, connect the same Google account, and they come back.

Automatic backups, daily or weekly

Set Auto sync to Off, Daily or Weekly; it starts on Weekly. And if you're about to wipe your phone, Sync now runs a backup on the spot.

Merging across two phones

Say you carry a work phone and a personal one. Pinned clips and custom themes merge both ways between them, so a clip you pin on the work phone shows up on the personal one after the next sync. Delete it on one and it stays deleted on the other, unless you edit it again later.

Import from Gboard

Moving off Gboard (our AI keyboard migration guide covers the full switch) used to mean retyping every word and shortcut you'd saved there.

Now you export your personal dictionary from Gboard, pick the file in CleverType, and import. If you had hnn set to "happy new year" in Gboard, type hnn in CleverType right after and "happy new year" is offered straight away. No restart needed.

If you used the old dictionary backup

There's nothing for you to do. We moved you over automatically: Dictionary stays selected, auto sync is set to weekly, and your last backup time is kept. Clips, themes and settings stay off until you switch them on yourself.

Related: delete several clips at once (8.23.0)

This one landed a release earlier, and it pairs nicely with pinning. Since 8.23.0 you can clear out the clipboard faster. Long-press a clip and tap Select (that clip starts ticked), or tap the circle-tick button in the clipboard header. The header then shows a close button, how many clips are selected, select all and delete. Delete stays greyed out until you've ticked at least one clip.

How it works

Your data goes to your Drive, not ours

Everything happens on your phone. CleverType talks straight to your Google Drive using Google's official Drive tools and Google Sign-In, and none of it passes through a CleverType server.

We ask for access to one folder only: our own. Google calls this the application data folder, a hidden folder that only the app that created it can read. You won't see it when you open Drive, and CleverType can't see your other Drive files. Google classes this permission as non-sensitive.

Why Android's own backup doesn't cover this

Android does have a built-in Auto Backup. It saves app data to a private Drive folder roughly once a night, while the phone is idle and on Wi-Fi. CleverType opts out of it, so that system backup never saves our dictionary, clips or settings.

After a reinstall or on a new phone, Cloud Sync is how you get them back.

How each item syncs

Your dictionary is the simple one. It carries your learned and hand-added words along with their shortcuts.

Pinned clips are matched across phones by their content, so the same clip on two phones counts as one, and if that clip changed in two places, the newer change wins. Custom themes settle conflicts the same way. Each theme also keeps a stable identity, which means renaming a theme on one phone shows up as a rename on the other, picture included.

Keyboard settings work differently, so read this part before you switch them on. They're never mixed setting by setting. Each phone saves a whole version, and at setup you choose which version to keep. After that the newest version wins in both directions, and a change you made on this phone since the last sync beats the one in Drive. So you won't end up with half of one phone's setup stitched onto the other's.

What counts as a "keyboard setting"

Only settings that make sense on any phone travel: layout, gestures, glide typing, sounds and haptics, autocorrect and suggestions, smartbar, clipboard options, languages, theme choice, emoji skin tone, spelling and incognito.

Things tied to one phone stay put. That's foldable screen sizes, recent emojis and the language you currently have active.

How to set it up

Turn on Cloud Sync

You can start from whichever screen you're already on.

1. Open the CleverType app and go to Settings. In the last section, Sync, tap Cloud Sync (it reads "Keep themes, dictionary and clips safe"). You can also tap Turn on sync with Google Drive on the banner on the Dictionary screen. The Clipboard screen shows the same banner if you have pinned clips, and the Themes screen shows it if you have custom themes.
2. On "Never lose your keyboard setup", tap Connect Google Drive.
3. Pick your Google account. On Google's permission screen, keep the Google Drive box ticked. If you untick it, CleverType can't save anything.
4. Under "What should we sync?", choose from Pinned clipboard, Dictionary, Themes and Keyboard settings. The first three are on by default. Keyboard settings is off by default, because it replaces your settings rather than merging them.
5. Tap Start syncing. Each row shows Waiting, Syncing, Done or Failed. When it finishes you'll see "You're synced" and the last sync time.
6. To change how often it runs, open Sync settings and set Auto sync to Off, Daily or Weekly.

Import your Gboard dictionary

You'll hop between the two keyboards once, to get Gboard's export file, then finish in CleverType.

1. In CleverType, open the Dictionary screen and tap Import in the header, then Import from Gboard.
2. In Gboard, go to Dictionary › Personal dictionary.
3. Tap ⋮ › Export and save the file anywhere.
4. Back in CleverType, tap Choose exported file and pick the file. The zip straight from Gboard works, and so does the dictionary.txt inside it if you unzipped it.
5. Review the list. Words you already have are greyed out and marked "Already added". Shortcuts show as chips. Untick anything you don't want, or use Select all.
6. Tap Import N words. The done screen confirms the count, and the words are in your dictionary under Mine.

Examples

Start with the importer. Say your Gboard export has 5 words, and 1 of them is already in CleverType. The review shows "5 words found", that one row is greyed out as "Already added", and the button reads "Import 4 words". Untick one more and you get "3 words imported".

A few smaller cases:

• A Gboard shortcut. Your export has hnn → "happy new year". Type hnn in CleverType and "happy new year" is suggested straight away.
• A word with no shortcut. It comes in as a plain word. If CleverType already had a shortcut for that word, the shortcut is kept.
• A word starting with #. #hashtag imports as a normal word.

Now sync. You've got a new phone on the same Google account. Install CleverType, then go to Settings › Sync › Cloud Sync › Connect Google Drive › Start syncing, and your pinned text and image clips, custom themes with their pictures, and dictionary come back.

The two-phone case looks a little different if you've turned on Keyboard settings. At setup you're asked "Which keyboard settings to keep?" with This phone or Google Drive, each with a summary like "Sounds on · Number row off". The note under it says pinned clips, dictionary and themes are merged automatically.

Tips

• Turn on Keyboard settings deliberately. It's off by default because it replaces your settings instead of merging them. If your new phone already has settings you like, pick "Keep this phone's settings" at setup.
• Pin what you want to keep. Only pinned clips sync, not your whole clipboard history.
• Pick Daily if you add words often. We'd pick it if you type a lot of names or work jargon, because with a daily backup a lost phone costs you at most a day of new words.
• Before you switch phones, tap Sync now so the latest words and clips are already in Drive when you set up the new one.

Troubleshooting

Here's what each message means, and what to do when sync or import doesn't behave.

• "Google Drive access was not allowed." On Google's permission screen, Drive access is a checkbox, and it was unticked. It's easy to miss. Without it nothing can sync. Tap Connect Google Drive again and leave the box ticked.
• "Your Google Drive is full." Your Google storage is one pool shared by Gmail, Drive and Photos (up to 15 GB on a free account). Free up some space, then sync again.
• "Could not connect to Google Drive." The Google sign-in failed. Try again. If you closed Google's sign-in sheet yourself, that counts as a cancel, not an error.
• "Some items could not sync." At least one item failed, but the others still finished. Check which row says Failed and tap Sync now.
• Auto sync didn't run. It waits for a working internet connection and runs once you're back online. If an automatic sync fails, it waits 6 hours before trying again, but Sync now works any time.
• Sync stopped. Rotating the phone or leaving the Sync screen doesn't stop it. Only Cancel (or Back while syncing) does, and you'll see "Sync cancelled". Items that already finished stay done.
• "That file isn't a Gboard dictionary export." The file isn't a Gboard export, or it's over 8 MB (a real export is a few kilobytes). Export again from Gboard › Dictionary › Personal dictionary › ⋮ › Export.
• "That export has no words in it" or "All of these words are already in your dictionary." The file was read fine. There's just nothing new to add.
• Disconnecting. Disconnect in Sync settings signs you out and forgets the sync state. Nothing is deleted from Drive or your phone, and reconnecting starts again from the intro screen. To remove CleverType's hidden Drive data or cut its access from the Drive side, go to drive.google.com › Settings › Manage apps, find CleverType, and choose Options › Disconnect from Drive.

How it compares

Other keyboards handle backup in their own ways, and some of them are good at it.

• Gboard: lets you export your personal dictionary (⋮ › Export) as a zip file. That export is exactly what CleverType's import reads, which is why Gboard is the one keyboard we can import from. If you're weighing the move, see our best Gboard alternative with AI grammar checking.
• Microsoft SwiftKey: Backup & Sync saves your personalised dictionary and typing model to a folder in your own OneDrive, using your Microsoft account. Same idea as ours (your cloud, not theirs), focused on words.
• Samsung Keyboard: "Samsung keyboard options" are part of a Samsung Cloud backup under Settings › Accounts and backup › Samsung Cloud. Automatic backup runs when the phone is charging, the screen is off and you're on Wi-Fi. It's a good option if you stay on Samsung phones.
• Apple keyboard (iPhone): text replacements live in Settings › General › Keyboard › Text Replacement, and your personal dictionary stays up to date across Apple devices through iCloud Drive.

Where CleverType differs on Android is scope. One switch covers pinned image clips, custom themes and keyboard settings as well as words, and it all goes to your own Google Drive.

Why we built it

The same kind of email kept landing in our support inbox. People switching phones or reinstalling wanted more than their words back: one asked how to bring their clipboard items across to a new phone, another wanted a clear list of what the backup actually protects. The old backup only covered the dictionary, so pinned clips, themes and settings had to be set up again by hand on every new phone.

Import from Gboard came from people switching keyboards, worried about leaving a big Gboard dictionary behind. Gboard can export its personal dictionary to a file. So we built an importer that reads that file and keeps your shortcuts.

Limitations

• Android only. On iPhone, only custom tones and custom grammar prompts sync with your Android phone, through your CleverType account rather than Drive.
• Needs Google Drive permission and internet. There's no option to back up to a file on your phone.
• Not everything syncs. Unpinned clipboard history, video clips, image clips over 8 MB, built-in themes, recent emojis and your currently active language stay on the phone.
• Gboard is the only import source. Other popular keyboards don't let you export your words, so there's no file for CleverType to read.
• The settings question is asked once. "Which keyboard settings to keep?" appears only at setup. After that, the newest settings version wins automatically.
• Import is a one-time copy. It doesn't keep CleverType and Gboard in sync.

Frequently Asked Questions

Try it

Available for Android.

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