Android 16 Now Lets You Customize Keyboard Shortcuts — Here’s How It Works

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

As part of its efforts to make Android work better for tablets and PCs, Google is improving Android’s support for physical keyboards. To make navigating the OS with a physical keyboard easier, Android offers a number of shortcuts that control system actions, can launch applications, and more. These shortcuts are triggered by entering specific key combinations, such as “Meta + H” to go to the home screen. Starting in Android 16, the key combinations used to trigger these shortcuts can finally be customized.

Earlier this month, we spotted code in the first beta of Android 16 that hinted at a new keyboard shortcut customization feature. Following the release of Android 16 Beta 2 last week, we noticed that this option is now live, giving us the opportunity to demonstrate it.

To access the new keyboard shortcut customization feature in Android 16, you first need to pull up Android’s keyboard shortcut menu. You can do so in one of three ways. First, you can go to Settings > System > Keyboard > Physical keyboard > View keyboard shortcuts. Second, you can tap the floating toolbar that appears when you focus on a text field and then select “show keyboard shortcuts.” This floating toolbar is part of Gboard, so it won’t appear if you’re using another Android keyboard. Lastly, you can enter ‘Meta + /’ on your keyboard to bring up the shortcut menu.

Once you bring up Android’s keyboard shortcut menu, you should see a “customize” button in the top right corner. If you don’t, it’s because you’re either not running at least Android 16 Beta 2 or your screen density is too low. This button currently only appears on devices with screens larger than 600dp, such as Android tablets.

When you tap the “customize” button, the shortcut menu enters its customization mode. A “+” button will appear next to shortcuts that are customizable, such as “open apps list.” Tapping the “+” button launches a dialog where you can enter an alternative key combination to trigger the shortcut. The alternative key combination must include the Meta/Action key but cannot match a combination that is already in use.

Here’s a video that demonstrates Android 16’s new customizable keyboard shortcut feature. To test this feature on my phone, I had to manually adjust the minimum width setting.

It’s great to see Google improve physical keyboard support on Android. If Google truly wants to turn Chrome OS into Android, then Android needs to pick up better support for traditional PC input methods if Google wants it to stand a chance against other desktop operating systems.

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