Fix: Gboard Voice Typing Not Working

In today’s digital world, voice typing has become one of the essential features for many users in their day-to-day life. With the feature implemented on Android smartphones via the Gboard application, this feature is now the go-to choice for people who wish not to spend a lot of time and effort typing sentences or phrases. Google voice typing engine embedded in Gboard is an amazing feature that can convert your speech into text in real-time. However, the feature is not perfect and often times you will realize that the Gboard Voice Typing not working correctly or giving incorrect responses to your voice commands.

Like any technological innovation, Gboard is not immune to glitches and malfunctions. When the Gboard’s voice typing feature fails to function properly, many users feel discomfort as they rely on this feature to complete various tasks, including but not limited to composing emails, writing texts, or dictating notes. Sometimes the feature may stop working all of a sudden or may give incorrect textual output. These issues can significantly hinder productivity and communication, causing immense frustration for users who depend on voice typing for efficient and accurate text input.

The issue of Gboard Voice Typing not working could be due to multiple reasons insufficient microphone sensitivity, audio driver conflicts, or incorrect microphone settings. Network connectivity problems, such as weak Wi-Fi or mobile data signals, can also hinder Gboard’s voice typing functionality, as it relies on cloud-based speech recognition based on several Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning data models. Sometimes the issue might manifest due to third party apps and scripts which are installed on your device.

Fix: Gboard Voice Typing Not Working

Google Gboard voice typing feature is the go-to voice-to-text engine that allows users to dictate words and sentences instead of typing them. However, the feature may not work in some scenarios, especially when you have multiple third-party keyboard applications installed. If you are also facing a similar issue, do not worry and follow the below troubleshooting methods to fix the same on your device.

Method 1: Restart Smartphone

Sometimes the issue of Gboard Voice Typing not working is just temporary in nature and can be fixed by simply restarting your device. Oftentimes, due to technical malfunctions or due to permissions issues with the microphone, the Gboard application may not work correctly. But once you restart your smartphone, all of such minor issues go away easily.

Method 2: Check Internet Connection

The text to voice feature you use on your Gboard application is directly dependent on the natural language processing servers over the cloud. So if you have an unstable or weak internet connection, you will face the issue of Gboard Voice Typing not working more often. To make sure this doesn’t happen again, please ensure to have a fast and stable internet connection. If you normally use a cellular network, then you may switch to a Wifi connection for better reliability.

Method 3: Enable Google Voice Typing

For Google Gboard to work correctly, it’s important that you enable this feature first. Along with this, you have to make sure the keyboard language layout fits the language you wish to use on Google Voice Typing. To do this, follow the below steps:

• Open the settings app on your device and navigate to System > Languages & Input section.
• Here scroll down and click on the manage keyboard.
• Here make sure the language you wish to use on your keyboard and voice typing is enabled.

• Click yes if any prompt appears and restart your device to take effect.

Method 4: Check Microphone Sensitivity

Oftentimes the microphone on our devices gets dirty and filled with dust and debris particles. Due to this, the device is not able to pick up sound signals clearly and some of the advanced features such as Google voice typing, don’t work as intended. To fix this, please take a cotton swap and a little bit of cleaning solution to clean the microphone ports on your device. These ports are usually present near the charging area or near the rear camera.

Method 5: Check Microphone Permissions

Without the correct microphone permissions, Google Keyboard will not be able to take voice input to process for its voice-to-text engine. To fix this, you have to re-configure the microphone permissions. To do this, follow the below steps:

• Open the settings app on your device and navigate to Apps > Gboard section.

• Here scroll down and click on the permissions tab.

• Now, click on the grant Gboard microphone permission option.

• Click yes and restart your device to take effect.

Method 6: Disable Google Assistant voice command

On most Android smartphones, Google Assistant is enabled by default which can create issues with the Gboard voice typing feature. In many cases, you will find that Voice Typing is not working as it’s supposed to with the Hey, Google (OK, Google) voice command enabled. To fix this, please follow the below steps:

• Open the settings app on your device and navigate to Google > Google Apps > Search, Assistant & Voice.
• Scroll down & click on voice match.

• Here click on the Google Assistant tab.

• Click on the turn off button to disable the Hey Google option.

• Now, restart your device to take effect.

Method 7: Download Offline language

If you are using a different language than the system language, for eg English. Then you will have to download the offline language package to assist with fast voice typing. Oftentimes this is not necessary when you have a high-speed low latency internet connection, but downloading offline language certainly helps to eliminate the Gboard Voice Typing not working issue. Please follow the below steps to do so:

• Open the settings app on your device and navigate to Apps > Gboard section.
• Here scroll down and click on the voice typing tab.
• Click on the Offline speech recognition option.

• Here makes sure you download the language that you wish to use with voice typing.
• Once done, restart your device to take effect.

Method 8: Update Gboard App from Playstore

If none of the above methods works for you, then it might be the case of a faulty app or an outdated app. Oftentimes we don’t update the keyboard app and it misses important updates. So it is important that we keep all apps updated on our devices.

To update the Gboard app, go to Play Store and search for Google Keyboard, then click on the update button. The update may take a few minutes to install and then you can enjoy the voice typing feature without any issues.

Conclusion

This brings us to the end of this guide for fixing Gboard Voice Typing not working issue. One of the most frustrating issues users may encounter is when Gboard’s voice typing feature suddenly stops working. Please note that the issue may also arise due to Network connectivity problems, such as weak Wi-Fi or low mobile data signals.

The above methods shall help you fix the Gboard’s voice typing malfunction on your device. No matter, if you’re a student, a working professional, or just someone who likes using voice input, fixing the issue with Gboard’s voice typing, will definitely improve your digital experience and make you more productive.