How-to

How to stop the iPhone keyboard switching language

Published 3 October 2026 · 4 min read

You start typing and the suggestions are in the wrong language. Or your keyboard was there a moment ago and now Apple’s is back. It feels random. It almost never is: there are four usual causes, and each has a different fix.

Cause 1: the globe key is cycling through keyboards

Apple’s globe key does two things. A tap moves to the next keyboard in your list. A touch and hold opens the list so you can pick one. If you have several keyboards installed — a second language, an emoji keyboard, a keyboard you tried once and forgot — a quick tap on the globe while reaching for another key lands you somewhere unexpected.

The fix: keep only the keyboards you use.

1. Open Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards.
2. Swipe left on any keyboard you do not use and tap Delete.
3. Tap Edit and drag the rest into the order you want, so the next tap of the globe goes where you expect.

When you do need another keyboard, touch and hold the globe and choose it, rather than tapping through the cycle.

Cause 2: a bilingual keyboard is following you

If you added a second language with Add to [language] Keyboard, you have Apple’s multilingual typing. It is meant to change language: Apple says the keyboard “automatically switches between the two languages you use most often”. Most of the time that is exactly what you want. The trouble comes with short words that exist in both languages, or a name it does not recognise, which can tip it the wrong way for a word or two.

The fix: if it switches more often than it helps, go back to separate keyboards. In Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards, swipe left on the bilingual keyboard and tap Delete, then use Add New Keyboard to add each language on its own, without choosing Add to…. Now you choose with the globe key. You trade automatic switching for predictability. If the automatic switching is what you want and it simply guesses wrong too often, the problem is the detection, and a keyboard that decides per word may suit you better (see cause 4).

Cause 3: iOS swaps third-party keyboards out in password fields

If you use Gboard, SwiftKey, Pilcrow or any other third-party keyboard, you will see Apple’s keyboard appear in some fields no matter what you do. That is an iOS rule. Apple’s developer documentation says that when you tap into a secure text field — the kind that shows your typing as dots — the system temporarily replaces a custom keyboard with the system keyboard, and that custom keyboards also cannot type into phone-number pads. When you move to an ordinary field, your keyboard comes back on its own.

The fix: there is none, and there is nothing broken. It is a deliberate protection for passwords, and it applies to every keyboard on the App Store equally. If your chosen keyboard does not come back after you leave the password field, tap the globe key once.

Cause 4: your languages need a keyboard that detects them

If your two languages are not a pair Apple supports for multilingual typing, or you write in three, iOS cannot follow you. Each language is its own keyboard, and every change of language is a trip to the globe key — in the middle of a sentence, if that is how you write.

The fix: a keyboard that detects language as you type. Gboard supports up to three languages at once and SwiftKey up to two, per their makers’ help pages. Pilcrow, which we make, lets you enable several and tells them apart word by word, so a sentence can change language halfway through with no key press and no change of layout. Any of your languages can be typed on the layout you already know, and the keyboard needs no Full Access to do it.

Pilcrow also has an optional language key, for the times you want to choose by hand.

Still switching?

Two more things worth checking. If an app or a website field is set up for a specific kind of input — email addresses, numbers, URLs — iOS may show a different layout for that field; that is the app asking for it, not your keyboard changing language. And if your phone is managed by your work, Apple’s developer documentation ties third-party keyboards in managed apps to device-management support, so Apple’s keyboard may appear in work apps.

For a full walk-through of setting up two languages, see how to type in two languages on iPhone without switching keyboards. If the real problem is words being changed rather than languages, this guide to autocorrect is the one to read.

Sources

1. Apple, Add or change keyboards on iPhone (removing, reordering and switching keyboards; bilingual keyboards)
2. Apple Developer, Custom Keyboard (secure text fields and phone pads)
3. Apple Developer, Configuring open access for a custom keyboard (managed apps)
4. Google, Set up Gboard – iPhone & iPad
5. Microsoft, How to use Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard with more than one language