Custom iOS keyboard features

While conditions match

State rules apply temporary settings while their conditions match. Combine orientation, window width, appearance, language, layout, input traits, time or declared plugin state. Choose whether all conditions or any condition must match. Missing context never counts as a match for a negative condition.

When an event occurs

Event rules run when the keyboard opens, a language or input trait changes, a plugin emits an event, or you tap a shortcut. Commands run once per event. Setting overrides last until the keyboard closes, the rule changes, or you clear session overrides.

Plugins

Add-ons that bring new tools, typing features and effects to Clink. Put your typing speed on the space bar or give your keys a new look. Install a plugin or write your own.

Check a rule before using it

Preview uses sample context that you choose. It shows matching conditions, invalid references and expected settings without running commands. The app preview is separate from the live keyboard. Add Automations to the top bar to see active overrides and run shortcut rules there.

When rules can run

Evaluation happens while the keyboard is active. Time rules do not run in the background, and closing events are best effort. Clink cannot identify the host app or change iOS settings. Rules keep the Membership, Full Access and user-tap requirements of the features they use. Importing grants no permissions.

Themes

Pick your colours, drop in a background, choose a font. Save the looks you like and swap between them anytime.

Light and dark themes

A theme carries a light look and a dark one, and Clink switches between them with the phone.

Background

Paint the theme’s colour, gradient or photo behind the keys. Off, the app you’re typing in shows through.

Background effect

Pick an effect (rain, aurora, fireflies) and it drifts behind the keys as you type.

Lighting

Backlight your keyboard the way a mechanical one glows: steady, moving, or lighting up under your fingers.

Effects

All effects are optional. They run on press or appearance only, so the keyboard stays fast.

Font

Set the type on the key faces, or draw your own letters with a finger or Apple Pencil. Fonts you make stay on this device and are never attached to a theme you share.

Pets

A little friend that lives on your keyboard. It watches you type and naps when you stop.

Stickers

Add your own images and GIFs to the keyboard, then drag, pinch, rotate and fade each one into place.

QR code

Send a theme as a QR code and scan it back on another phone. A theme too detailed for one code travels as a file instead.

Number row

A row of digits above the letters, with its own height and text size. Keep it, size it, or split it along with the keyboard.

Split keyboard

Pull the keys apart to both edges for thumb typing, with the gap width under your control. The number and symbol pages can split with it.

One-handed mode

Bring the whole keyboard under one thumb, left or right, at whatever width suits your hand. A shortcut on the bar puts it back.

Layout editor

The Layout editor builds keys, rows and whole extra pages.

Layouts

Dvorak, Colemak and the non-Latin arrangements are in the same list.

Key size

Taller keys are easier to tap accurately. Shorter keys give more screen room.

Key shape

One slider takes them from fully rounded to square-edged.

Spacing

The gaps around the keys, set apart from their size. Square keys with tight spacing is the classic mechanical look.

Always-on keys

Keys that sit beside the space bar on every layout, in every language. They stay put when you switch.

Quick presets

One tap adds the keys people ask for most: period and comma, .com, an emoji key, a language key, undo and redo, or Arabic tashkeel.

Long-press alternates

Hold the key to pop up a bar of extra characters or panels, like Gboard's accents.

Sound packs

Make a pack from your own clicks: a file, a recording, or a copy of a built-in one to start from.

Haptics

The haptic strength is Clink's own, so it works even where the system click is off.

Key popups

The bubble above the key you press. Keep it, turn it off, or set how it springs.

Full Access

Custom sounds and haptics need Full Access. The standard click works without it.

Language packs

Open Languages in Clink, pick the keyboard languages you need, and let their resources download. Typing then works offline. Apple’s translation and speech resources download separately.

Learned words

Learned per language, so your French never corrects your English.

Custom languages

Made up a language? Describe it here and Clink will predict, correct and lay out keys for it like any other. Bring a word list to teach it vocabulary.

Layouts

A layout belongs to the language that types on it, so you change it inside the language.

Autocorrect

The bar suggests as you type, and misspellings fix themselves on the next space.

Neural model

A model trained on millions of sentences runs on your Neural Engine, GPU, and CPU. It guesses what word comes next from context.

Adaptive hitboxes

Adaptive hitboxes grow the keys you're likely to type next and shrink the ones you aren't. Nothing moves on screen, so you never see it happen.

Learning

Picks up the names, slang, and jargon you type, not words the dictionary already has.

Custom words

Add names, slang, or jargon the keyboard keeps fighting. They show up as you type, stay correctly spelled, and survive a learned-words reset.

Replacements

Type a shortcut, press space, and Clink inserts the phrase. Stays on this device; overrides Settings → Keyboard shortcuts on conflict.

Punctuation

Capitalization, apostrophes, quotes, and spacing tidy up as you type.

Dictionaries

Word lists ship inside Clink. No download step when you type.

Imported dictionaries

Bring a word list for a language Clink doesn’t ship, or add extra vocabulary to one it does. The file stays on this device.

Swipe typing

Trace a word by gliding across the letters. Lift to insert it. Tapping still works normally.

Two-thumb word composition

Build one word across both thumbs. Glide, tap, switch hands, and lift without ending it.

Cursor

Hold the space bar and the keys become a trackpad. Glide anywhere.

Backspace

Swipe left on the backspace key to delete a whole word. Keep dragging for more.

Long-press alternates

Flick straight down on a key to insert its first long-press variant instantly.

Language switch

Swipe up on the Return key to change language. The keys change with it.

Emoji

Free

Tap the emoji key, or swipe up on 123, to open emoji inside Clink. No second keyboard.

GIFs

Membership

Choose a GIF to copy it, then paste it in your conversation. Some apps accept only a link.

Clipboard

Membership

Save recently copied text and images for quick re-paste. Adds a clipboard icon to the suggestions bar.

Notepad

Membership

Jot text from any app, then drop it wherever you type. Adds a notepad to the panel button.

Dictation

Free

Speak to type. Your words are transcribed on-device and streamed straight into whatever field you're typing in. Adds a mic to the panel button.

Handwriting

Membership

Finger-write letters or a whole line and Clink recognizes it and types the text. Adds a handwriting pad to the panel button.

Translate

Membership

Translate typed or pasted text into another language, right inside the keyboard. Adds a translate panel to the panel button.

Dictionary

Membership

Look up the word you're typing, and swap in a better one

AI Tools

Membership

Adds an AI panel behind the keyboard's panel button. Proofread, rewrite, change tone, shorten, reply and more. Only shows up when Apple Intelligence is ready.

Text FX

Membership

Text FX restyles the word you're on. The styled text works in any app.

Calculator

Membership

Evaluate arithmetic and insert the result wherever you type. Adds a calculator to the panel button.

Conversion

Membership

Convert units of measurement

Cling

Membership

Browse everything you've saved in Cling and tap to type it wherever you are.

Replacements

Membership

Type a few letters, get the whole thing.

Profiles

Free

Pick a saved profile from the keyboard and it takes effect straight away.

Layouts

Free

Switch your key arrangement

Dictation

Speak to type. Your words are transcribed on-device and streamed straight into whatever field you're typing in. Adds a mic to the panel button.

Dictation assist

Speech recognition gets the words right and the punctuation wrong. When you stop speaking, the model puts the sentence breaks and capitals back, and drops the "um"s.

Apple Intelligence

Everything runs on this phone with Apple Intelligence. It works offline, nothing you type leaves the device, and every AI feature stays off until you switch it on here.

AI Tools

Adds an AI panel behind the keyboard's panel button. Proofread, rewrite, change tone, shorten, reply and more. Only shows up when Apple Intelligence is ready.

AI translation

Translate with Apple Intelligence instead of Apple's offline language packs. Reads better, especially on idioms. Turn it off for faster translations and more languages.

Voice only

Swap the whole app for a single dictation screen, and the keyboard opens on the mic instead of the keys. Nothing is switched off: the keys are one tap away, and every setting you have keeps working.

Profiles

Pick a saved profile from the keyboard and it takes effect straight away.

Widgets

Switch keyboard profiles with one tap, without opening Clink.

iCloud Sync

Everything is encrypted on this device before it goes up. The key stays in your iCloud Keychain, so only your devices can open it.

Backup & Restore

Your whole setup travels as one file. Save it, share it, bring it back anywhere.

Typing

Predictions, autocorrect, and swipe decoding all run in the app. No server.

Full Access

Only needed for haptics, clipboard history and custom sounds. Everything else works without it, and Clink never sends your typing anywhere.

Analytics

Your words, streak, and speed, measured on device and never uploaded.

iCloud Sync

Everything is encrypted on this device before it goes up. The key stays in your iCloud Keychain, so only your devices can open it.

Panels

A panel replaces the keys with a UI of your own: a calculator, a board of snippets, anything you can lay out in Python.

Actions

Actions are small Python scripts that transform whatever you've typed: shout it, reverse it, reformat it.

Repositories

Clink reads packs from public GitHub repositories. You add one by name, Clink reads its latest release, and every file is verified before it is installed. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing of yours runs on a server.

File formats

Themes, layouts, sounds, and scripts are files on your phone.

Automations

Build temporary configuration rules, connect plugin events and commands, and use Clink’s existing widgets and links.

None of this reaches the network

Scripts run in Clink's own interpreter, which has no imports, no files, no processes and no network. Typing stays offline whatever you write, and a script you install cannot change that.