How to type German umlauts on iPhone
Ä, ö and ü already sit behind the same press-and-hold gesture that reaches é or ñ, and the German keyboard gives each one its own key. The part worth understanding is why the two dots matter — an umlaut can be the only thing separating two unrelated German words, or a singular from its plural.
Ä, ö and ü show up in ordinary German constantly — Mädchen, schön, für, München — and none of the three sits anywhere on the iPhone’s default English keyboard. Nothing is missing or broken. Like most letters English doesn’t use, each one is a gesture away rather than a key of its own, unless you switch to a keyboard built for German.
Already a hold away on the English keyboard
Every accented letter on the standard iPhone keyboard sits behind a plain one, reached by pressing and holding instead of tapping — the same gesture that reaches é from e or ñ from n. German’s three umlauts ride along on rows built to cover Western European accents generally, so nothing extra needs installing to reach them:
- a → ä (along with à, á, â, ã, å, æ, ā)
- o → ö (along with ô, ò, ó, œ, ø, ō, õ)
- u → ü (along with û, ù, ú, ū)
That covers all three German umlauts for a name or a stray word inside an English sentence, no keyboard switch required.
A dedicated key on the German keyboard
Holding a key and sliding to the right option costs a second each time, which adds up across a whole message written in German. Add the German keyboard — Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard → Deutsch — and the standard German QWERTZ layout gives ä and ö their own keys to the right of L, with ü on its own key in the top row. No holding, no sliding, and autocorrect switches to a German dictionary at the same time instead of continuing to check every word against an English one.
An umlaut is not decoration — it changes the word
It is easy to look at two dots over a vowel and assume they are a stylistic flourish, the way an accent can feel optional in a language you don’t speak. German umlauts are not that. The word itself, umlaut, names a real sound change — the vowel underneath genuinely shifts, and German leans on that shift to do actual grammatical work rather than just decorate a letter.
The clearest case is the plural of a whole class of German nouns: Mutter becomes Mütter, Bruder becomes Brüder, Buch becomes Bücher, Haus becomes Häuser. The umlaut is not a spelling variant of the singular — it is how the plural is built, the entire difference between one and many. The same shift shows up in verb conjugation: fahren (to drive) becomes du fährst, laufen (to run) becomes er läuft, the vowel changing in step with the grammar around it.
And sometimes an umlaut is simply the only thing separating two unrelated words with no shared meaning at all: schon (already) and schön (beautiful), or mochte (liked, past tense) and möchte (would like). Drop the dots and autocorrect trained on English has no way to know a completely different word just appeared.
Not the same mark as an English diaeresis
Two dots over a vowel show up occasionally in English too — naïve, coöperate — and it is a coincidence that they look identical to a German umlaut, because they are doing a different job. An English diaeresis tells you to pronounce a vowel separately from the one next to it rather than blending the two into one sound. A German umlaut marks a genuinely different vowel sound in the letter it sits on, with no second vowel involved at all. Same mark, unrelated purpose.
Capitals behave exactly as expected
German capitalises every noun, and plenty of German words simply start with an umlaut — Übung, Österreich, Ärger. Unlike ß, which never begins a German word at all and has its own separate rules around capitalisation, Ä, Ö and Ü behave like any other capital letter: the same press-and-hold row and the same dedicated German-keyboard key reach the capital form the moment shift or caps lock is active, with nothing special to remember.
When ae, oe and ue stand in for them
Older systems, some non-German keyboards, forms built for an international audience and things like license plates sometimes have no way to accept ä, ö or ü at all. German has a standard fallback for exactly that situation, taught in German schools for filling out exactly this kind of form: spell the umlaut as its base vowel followed by an e — ä becomes ae, ö becomes oe, ü becomes ue. Müller becomes Mueller, für becomes fuer, möchte becomes moechte. It is still recognisably German and every native reader understands it instantly, but it is a fallback rather than an equivalent spelling — worth reaching for only when the real letter genuinely isn’t an option, not as a shortcut on a keyboard that can already type ä, ö and ü directly.
Where Kibo fits
German is one of the 30 typing languages built into Kibo, inside a single keyboard rather than a separate iOS keyboard to add and switch between. Turning it on and reaching it with a tap or hold on the globe key 🌐 puts ä, ö and ü on their own keys exactly as the standard German layout does, with German-aware autocorrect in place of an English dictionary’s guesses. Typing in German, like any of Kibo’s languages, needs no Full Access — that switch is read only by the Copy word, Copy line and Paste buttons on the toolbar. Kibo is free to download.
Frequently asked questions
Can I type ä, ö and ü without adding a German keyboard?
Yes. All three already sit behind the standard press-and-hold gesture on the English iPhone keyboard — hold a for ä, o for ö, u for ü — the same gesture that reaches é or ñ. Adding the German keyboard mainly buys dedicated keys and a German autocorrect dictionary instead of an English one.
Does an umlaut actually change the meaning of a German word?
Often, yes. Schon (already) and schön (beautiful) are unrelated words distinguished only by the umlaut, and a whole class of German nouns forms its plural by adding one — Mutter becomes Mütter, Buch becomes Bücher. Dropping the dots is not a minor spelling slip in these cases; it changes which word is on the page.
Is it okay to write ae, oe and ue instead of ä, ö and ü?
Only as a fallback. It is the standard substitute German itself teaches for systems that can’t accept the real letters — Mueller for Müller, fuer for für — and any German reader understands it instantly, but it is not an equivalent spelling to use by choice when the keyboard can already type the umlaut directly.
Try it on your own keyboard
Kibo is a free custom keyboard for iPhone with real mechanical key sounds, a wardrobe of themes and RGB backlight effects. No account, no ads, and it works with Full Access left off.