Pilcrow

How-to

Third-party keyboard not showing on iPhone or iPad? Every reason, and the fix

Published · 4 min read

You installed a keyboard, chose it, and a minute later Apple’s keyboard is back. Most of the time nothing is broken: iOS has rules about where a third-party keyboard may appear. Here is every case we know of, how to recognise it, and what to do.

In short. iOS always uses its own keyboard in password fields and phone-number fields, in apps that refuse third-party keyboards, and for dictation. It can also end a keyboard that uses too much memory. In each case, your keyboard comes back in the next ordinary field; if it doesn’t, touch and hold the emoji or switch-keyboard key and pick it again.

First: is the keyboard added?

Installing a keyboard from the App Store is not enough on its own. Open Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards. If it is not in the list, tap Add New Keyboard and choose it from the third-party keyboards. Then, in any text field, touch and hold the emoji key or the switch-keyboard key and tap it.

1. Password fields

What you see: Apple’s keyboard appears when you tap a field that shows your typing as dots, then yours returns in the next field.

Apple’s developer documentation says that in a secure text field the system temporarily replaces a custom keyboard with the system keyboard. It is a protection for passwords and applies to every third-party keyboard equally. Nothing to fix.

2. Phone-number fields

What you see: a numeric phone pad from Apple when you enter a phone number.

The same documentation says phone-pad fields also switch to the system keyboard. Again, your keyboard returns in the next ordinary field.

3. Apps that allow only Apple’s keyboard

What you see: one particular app — often a bank, a health app or a work app — never shows your keyboard anywhere, while every other app does.

An app can refuse custom keyboards altogether, and Apple’s documentation gives banking and health apps as the examples. The app decides; neither you nor the keyboard can override it. If it bothers you, the app’s developer is the one to ask.

4. Dictation

What you see: you want to dictate and the microphone takes you to Apple’s keyboard, or there is no microphone key on yours.

Apple’s documentation says custom keyboards have no access to the microphone, so dictation is not something they can do themselves. Use dictation from Apple’s keyboard, then switch back.

5. iOS ended the keyboard

What you see: your keyboard vanishes in the middle of typing, or comes up blank, and Apple’s takes its place.

A keyboard extension runs with a memory limit, and Apple’s documentation says that if a keyboard goes over it, the system ends it; the limit varies from one iPhone model to another. Switch back to your keyboard and it starts again. If it happens often with one keyboard, tell its developer — it is theirs to fix.

6. The globe key took you round the list

What you see: one tap on the globe key and you are on a different keyboard.

A single tap cycles through every keyboard you have added. Touch and hold instead, and pick the one you want; or remove keyboards you never use from Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards. How to stop the iPhone keyboard switching language goes through this one in detail.

How Pilcrow helps

Pilcrow, the keyboard we make, has a page of its own for this in the app: When Apple’s keyboard appears. It lists each case above in plain words, says how to switch back, and checks this phone for the two things people most often miss: whether Pilcrow has been added as a keyboard, and whether Full Access is on.

We also work to keep the keyboard small in memory, so iOS has no reason to end it: since version 1.1.0 it reuses the keys it has already built instead of building a new set for every field you visit.

And because the password-field rule exists to protect what you type, it is worth knowing what Pilcrow does with everything else: the keyboard contains no networking code at all, so there is nothing it could send.

Last checked October 2026 against Apple’s iPhone User Guide for iOS 27 and Apple’s developer documentation. If anything here is out of date, write to info@pilcrowtype.com.

Sources

  1. Apple Developer, App Extension Programming Guide: Custom Keyboard (secure fields, phone pads, apps that refuse custom keyboards, no microphone)
  2. Apple Developer, application(_:shouldAllowExtensionPointIdentifier:) (how an app refuses custom keyboards)
  3. Apple Developer, Creating a custom keyboard (the memory limit)
  4. Apple, Add or change keyboards on iPhone (adding a keyboard; switching with the emoji or switch-keyboard key)

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