A recent update to the Google Keyboard Gboard has added the word ‘Google’ to the keyboard spacebar at the bottom. I personally didn’t like this addition to the app and at present, I cannot find a way to disable it in the latest version.
There is however a solution to this problem, you can roll back your Gboard app to stock and not update it again. Beware that it will reset your keyboard settings in doing so (such as the theme).
To do this,
- Open the Play Store app.
- Swipe in from the left and choose ‘Settings’.
- Select ‘Auto-update apps’ and choose ‘Don’t auto-update apps’.
- Select Done.
- Go back to the Play Store main page.
- Search for ‘Gboard’ and select ‘Gboard – the Google Keyboard’.
- Then select ‘Uninstall’ to roll it back to stock.
- Viola. You shouldn’t have ‘Google’ on your spacebar anymore.
Unless you have a custom ROM your app should go back to the factory version that came with the phone. If for some reason that uninstalls the keyboard completely for you, you may wish to download an older build from a respectable location. I can confirm that the version I am currently using is 8.3.6.250752527-release-arm64-v8a26830614 and it’s not present for my OnePlus3 but I imagine the releases are hardly innovative as keyboards tend to go.
That should be all you need to remove the word ‘Google’ from your android keyboard spacebar, you could also install another keyboard if you particularly wanted to.