I turned off cloud typing on my Android keyboard and gained back my privacy

I turned off cloud typing on my Android keyboard and gained back my privacy Bryan M. Wolfe / MakeUseOf By  Bryan M. Wolfe Published May 30, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT Bryan Wolfe has spent 15+ years writing about the tech people actually use — and occasionally the tech they probably shouldn't. With bylines at Yahoo, MakeUseOf, TechRadar, and Digital Trends, he brings an MBA-sharpened perspective to consumer tech, AI tools, and digital productivity. He's based in State College, PA, where he also runs GoingSolo.Life, a solo travel brand for the independently minded. Sign in to your MakeUseOf account Add Us On Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap I often wonder what my phone knows about me. Contacts, location, and browsing history are all obvious. But only after checking my Gboard settings did I realize my keyboard had been sending data to Google the entire time I've used my Pixel. Not my actual words, exactly. But close enough to make me uncomfortable. Cloud typing features process keystrokes online to improve keyboard predictions. The catch is that your layout habits and custom vocabulary leave your device. Once I realized how much data was being sent to Google's servers, I turned it off. Here's what I found and how you can do the same. Related I tried an open-source keyboard to stop Google from learning my typing habits I gave up Gboard after learning what really happens to your typing data Posts 3 By  Tashreef Shareef What cloud typing sends to Google (and why it matters) How Gboard's usage statistics work Gboard, Google's keyboard app and the default on Pixel phones, includes several great features , many that sync (copy data between devices via the internet) or share your data with Google's servers (remote computers that store and process your information)