UsableKey

The tiny, fast keyboard for every Android — runs on Android 1.5+, under 1 MB, 60+ layouts, offline suggestions, emoji and clipboard history.

Download APK · Website · Report a bug

Features

• 60+ layouts generated from Unicode CLDR — QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Devanagari and more
• Offline word suggestions & auto-correct for 13 languages (en, de, fr, es, it, pt, nl, pl, tr, sv, uk, ru, ar), with fuzzy matching and a personal dictionary
• Emoji panel with categories, recents and flags
• Clipboard history for text and images, with an image shelf you can send into apps that accept images
• Editing tools row: cursor arrows, select, cut/copy/paste, undo/redo, Ctrl/Alt/Fn modifiers
• Swipe-down symbols & key hints, long-press accents, optional number row
• Dark / light / AMOLED / blue themes, adjustable key height and long-press delay
• Haptic and sound feedback, key preview popups
• Private by design: no INTERNET permission, no analytics, no accounts. Everything stays on your device
• Runs on old phones: minSdk 3 (Android 1.5) up to Android 14, so it fits devices most keyboards dropped long ago
• Tiny and lean: whole APK under 1 MB, ~3,700 lines of Java, no third-party libraries

Screenshots

Settings	Languages	Layouts

Clipboard	Symbols	My words

Install

1. Download UsableKey-*.apk from the latest release and install it.
2. Open UsableKey, tap Enable keyboard (Step 1), then Switch to UsableKey (Step 2).
3. Pick your languages under Languages.

Build from source

Requirements: JDK 17+, Python 3, Android SDK with platforms;android-34 and build-tools (set ANDROID_HOME, default ~/Android/Sdk). No Gradle needed.

python3 build.py            # check + build -> out/usablekey.apk
python3 build.py install    # build and adb install
python3 build.py layouts    # regenerate layouts from CLDR
python3 build.py dict       # regenerate dictionaries (FrequencyWords)
python3 build.py emoji      # regenerate emoji list

The first build creates a local signing key at ~/.android/usablekey.keystore. Source files are kept under 100 lines each (python3 build.py check).

Releases

Pushing a tag like v1.0.0 triggers GitHub Actions to build the APK and publish a release:

git tag v1.0.0 && git push --tags

Release APKs are signed with a throwaway CI key, so updating from a locally built APK requires uninstalling first.

Project layout

src/dev/usablekey/   Java sources (ime, input, layout, predict, clip, emoji, media, settings, view)
assets/              dictionaries (.dic), layouts (lay/), emoji list
tools/               pure-Python build system and data generators
docs/                GitHub Pages site and screenshots

Author

Made by Mohamad Almousli — al-mo.de · @mkalmousli

License

MIT © 2026 Mohamad Almousli