Know about the keyboard shortcut in Android 16? See this demo

Mashal Rehman / Android Authority

tl; drag

• Android increases the capacity to customize the 16 keyboard shortcuts.
• This feature is first live in Android 16 beta 2.
• Although you may not assign customs key combinations to every available shortcut, you can customize many of them.

Update, June 10, 2025 (2:24 PM et): Google today announced that it is launching a custom keyboard shortcut in Android to “create your own collection of hotcas.” This feature is already available in Android 16 for the Pixel Tablet and will launch “later this year” on other devices after receiving an update.

As part of efforts to improve Android work for tablets and PCs, Google is improving Android’s support for physical keyboards. Navigating OS with physical keyboard and offers many shortcuts that control the system process, launch applications, and more. To go to the home screen, these shortcuts are dynamic by inserting a specific key combination, such as “Meta + H”. Launching in Android 16, the key combination used to mobilize these shortcuts can eventually be customized.

Earlier this month, we saw the code in the first beta of Android 16, which indicated a new keyboard shortcut custom feature. Last week after the release of Android 16 son 2, we saw that this option was now living, which would give us a chance to demonstrate it.

To access the new feature of keyboard shortcut customization in Android 16, you need to draw the first Android keyboard shortcut menu. You can do this in one of the three ways. First, you can go Settings> System> Keyboard> View Keyboard shortcut. Second, you can tap the floating toolbar that appears when you focus on a text field and then select “Show the keyboard shortcut. This floating tool is part of the bar board, so it won’t appear if you are using another Android keyboard, you can enter.Meta + /On your keyboard to bring a shortcut menu.

Once you bring the Android keyboard shortcut menu, you should see a “.Customized“Buttons in the top right corner. If you don’t, the reason is that you are either not running at least Android 16 beta 2 or your screen density is too low. This button is currently visible on only 600dp -screen devices, such as Android tablets.

When you tap the “custom” button, the shortcut menu enters its customization mode. A “+“The button will appear next to the shortcut that is customized, such as the list of open apps. Taping the “”+”button launches a dialog where you can insert an alternative key combination to mobilize the shortcut.

Here is a video that shows Android 16’s new custom keyboard shortcut feature. This feature is to test this feature on my phone, I had to manually adjust the minimum width sequence.

And here’s the keyboard shortcut list that is customized:

• System
  • System Controls
    • Open the list of apps (customized)
    • Jump to Home screen (customized)
    • View recent apps (customized)
    • Move forward through recent apps
    • Cycle rear through recent apps
    • Go back (customized)
    • Take a screenshot (customized)
    • Shortcut show (customization)
    • See notifications (customized)
    • Lockscreen (customized)
  • System apps
    • Take a note (customized)
    • Open Settings (customized)
    • Open Assistant (customized)
• Multi -Tasking
  • Split screen
    • Use a splat screen with the app on the right (customization)
    • Use the splat screen with the app on the left (customization)
    • Switch to the full screen (customized)
• App shortcut
  • Applications
    • Calculator (customization)
    • Calendar (customized)
    • Chrome (customized)
    • Contact (customized)
    • Gmail (customized)
    • Map (customized)
    • YouTube (customized)
• Input
  • Input
    • Go to the next language
    • Go to the previous tongue

The shortcuts provided by apps like G Board and Google Chrome are not customized with regret, but most of the system provided.

It was great to see that Google improves physical keyboard support on Android. If Google really wants to convert Chrome OS into Android, then Android needs to get better support for traditional PC input methods if Google wants it to stand against another desktop operating system.

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