This is not every keyboard on Play. It is every keyboard I could check against a source the vendor controls: an F-Droid listing, which prints the manifest permissions of the build F-Droid compiled, or the vendor's own documentation stating what it requests. Nothing here is inferred from a screenshot or a forum post. Where I could not find a first-party source, the keyboard is not in the table.
Last verified: 2026-09-06. I intend to re-check this quarterly and update the date. A stale version of this table is worse than none.
The table
| Keyboard | Holds INTERNET? | Source | Other permissions listed by the same source |
|---|---|---|---|
| FrankenKeys 3.13.0 | No | Merged manifest, plus a build assertion that fails on any addition | VIBRATE, RECORD_AUDIO, AICore bind, BILLING, one private receiver permission |
| HeliBoard 4.1 | No | F-Droid listing; README states "Does not use internet permission, and thus is 100% offline" | read contacts, read and write user dictionary, run at startup, vibration, private receiver |
| FlorisBoard 0.5.2 | No | F-Droid listing | show notifications, vibration, private receiver |
| FUTO Keyboard | No | Vendor privacy policy: "The app does not request the network permission" | Not listed on the policy page |
| Urik 0.23.1-beta | No | F-Droid listing; vendor privacy statement | biometric, fingerprint, vibration, private receiver |
| Simple Keyboard 6.6 | No | F-Droid listing, "Minimal permissions (only Vibrate)" | vibration |
| Thumb-Key 5.1.16 | No | F-Droid listing | private receiver only |
| Hacker's Keyboard 1.41.1 | No | F-Droid listing | read and write user dictionary, vibration |
| AnySoftKeyboard 1.13.8175 | No | F-Droid listing | show notifications, read contacts, read and write user dictionary, vibration, private receiver |
| Indic Keyboard 4.0-beta7 | No | F-Droid listing | show notifications, read contacts, user dictionary, run at startup, vibration, private receiver |
| Unexpected Keyboard 2.0.4 | Yes | F-Droid listing: "have full network access", "view network connections" | run at startup, vibration, private receiver |
| Gboard | Yes | Google's help page "Learn how Gboard gets better" documents features that send data to Google | Not from a first-party permission list; see note |
| Microsoft SwiftKey | Yes | Microsoft's permissions page: "Full Internet access" is listed with the reason "download language models" | find accounts, storage, vibration, wake lock, run at startup, cross-profile, notifications, record audio, camera |
Links to every source are in the box at the end.
How to read it
Three things stand out, and none of them is a scandal.
Most keyboards that publish through F-Droid do not hold INTERNET. That is partly selection: F-Droid's audience asks. It is also a real engineering fact. A keyboard does not need the network to be a keyboard. Dictionaries ship in the package, or download through a browser, and prediction runs on the phone. FrankenKeys is not unusual in this column. It is unusual in the rest of the row: fifty synthesised key sounds, thirty press effects and on-device AI rewrites, with the same empty network line.
One open-source keyboard does hold it. Unexpected Keyboard's F-Droid listing shows "have full network access". I do not know why, and I am not going to guess in a table whose whole value is that it does not guess. The listing is public and the source is public; if you use it, the reason is findable.
The two biggest keyboards document their network use in their own words. Google's page says federated learning "doesn't send the text you speak or type to Google, but will send what it learns to Google", and that audio donation snippets are sent and stored. Microsoft's page lists Internet access with a stated purpose. Neither company hides it, and a reader should not need to be told a network-connected keyboard connects to the network. The difference this table draws is not honesty. It is whether the property is a policy the vendor sets, or a permission the operating system enforces.
What is not in the table, and why
Gboard's manifest permissions are not listed because I could not read them from a page Google controls. The Play listing shows them, but only inside the Play app, and I am not going to transcribe a screenshot and call it a source. If Google publishes a permission list I will add it.
Keyboards with no F-Droid presence and no vendor permission documentation, which is most of the themes-and-fonts category on Play, are absent for the same reason. Their Play listings do carry a permission list derived from the manifest, and you can read it yourself: About this app, then App permissions, then See more. If you check one and want it added, send the listing URL and the date.
The method, so you can repeat it
- For an F-Droid keyboard, open
f-droid.org/en/packages/<package id>/and expand the permissions list. F-Droid builds from source and lists what the build declares. - For a vendor with a permissions or privacy page, quote the page, not a summary of it.
- For FrankenKeys, do not take this site's word for it: the manifest is the source, and decompiling it takes ten minutes.
- Record the version and the date. Permissions change between releases.
Sources read on 2026-09-06
- f-droid.org/en/packages/helium314.keyboard/ and github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard (README)
- f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.patrickgold.florisboard/
- keyboard.futo.tech/privacy
- f-droid.org/en/packages/com.urik.keyboard/ and github.com/urikdev/Urik/blob/main/PRIVACY.md
- f-droid.org/en/packages/rkr.simplekeyboard.inputmethod/
- f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dessalines.thumbkey/
- f-droid.org/en/packages/org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboard/
- f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkeyboard/
- f-droid.org/en/packages/org.smc.inputmethod.indic/
- f-droid.org/en/packages/juloo.keyboard2/
- support.google.com/gboard/answer/9334583 ("Learn how Gboard gets better")
- support.microsoft.com/en-us/swiftkey-keyboard/microsoft-swiftkey-keyboard-permissions
If a row above is wrong, it is wrong against a public page with a date on it, and I would rather be corrected than be quietly right. corey@forgedev.studio.