Why your iPhone keyboard keeps switching back
Password fields, number pads, restarts and cycling order — the four reasons a custom keyboard seems to undo itself, and which ones you can do something about.
You add a keyboard, use it happily for an hour, and then it is gone — the grey system keyboard is back and you have to hit the globe again. This is one of the most common complaints about custom keyboards on iOS, and in most cases nothing is broken. There are four distinct causes, they look identical from the outside, and only two of them are yours to change.
1. You tapped a password field
This is the big one, and it is not a bug at any level. iOS never shows a third-party keyboard in a secure text field. The moment a field is marked as secure entry — a login password, a payment field, a passcode — the system swaps in Apple’s own keyboard, no matter what you had selected a second earlier.
It is a deliberate boundary: a third-party keyboard is a separate process, and Apple simply does not route password keystrokes through it. Leave the field and your keyboard comes back on its own. There is no setting to change this, in Kibo or in any other keyboard, and any keyboard claiming otherwise would be worth distrusting.
2. The app asked for a different keyboard type
Text fields can request a specific kind of input: a number pad for a quantity, a decimal pad for a price, a phone pad for a number. When an app requests one of those, iOS presents that specialised keyboard rather than your general-purpose one. It looks like your keyboard vanished; really the field asked for something your keyboard was never in the running for.
You see this constantly in banking apps, checkout flows, and anywhere with a quantity stepper. Move to a normal text field in the same app and your keyboard is there again.
3. The phone restarted, or the app was force-quit
After a reboot — and sometimes after an iOS update — the first keyboard you get is the system default, even if you had been using something else for weeks. The same can happen the first time you type in an app that was force-quit from the app switcher.
One tap on the globe puts you back. There is no way to declare a third-party keyboard "the default" on iOS: Apple does not expose that setting, so every keyboard app is equally subject to this. If you have just restarted and things feel wrong, this is almost always what happened.
4. You have several keyboards and the globe is cycling
A single tap on the globe key moves to the next keyboard in your list, in the order set in Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards. With four keyboards installed, three taps land you somewhere you did not want. If you tap the globe reflexively before typing, you will drift.
- Press and hold the globe instead of tapping it. iOS shows the full list and you jump straight to the one you want, with no cycling.
- Prune the list. Every keyboard you never use is one more stop on the loop. Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Edit → remove.
- Reorder it. Drag your everyday keyboard to the top so a single tap tends to land on it.
What actually helps
- Hold the globe rather than tapping it whenever you need a specific keyboard.
- Keep two or three keyboards, not six. Emoji counts as one.
- Expect the system keyboard in password fields and treat it as a good sign — that is the boundary working.
- After a restart, switch once and carry on. Nothing is misconfigured.
None of this requires Full Access, and none of it is specific to one keyboard app. Kibo behaves the same way here as every other third-party keyboard on iOS, because these rules belong to the system rather than to the keyboard.
When it really is a problem
If your keyboard disappears from Settings entirely, or the globe key no longer offers it, that is a different situation — usually the extension being unloaded under memory pressure or an install that did not complete. Opening the container app once and re-adding the keyboard in Settings resolves nearly all of it.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my custom keyboard disappear for passwords?
iOS never shows third-party keyboards in secure text fields. Apple substitutes the system keyboard so password keystrokes never pass through a third-party extension. It returns as soon as you leave the field, and no setting changes it.
Can I make a third-party keyboard the default on iPhone?
No. iOS has no "default keyboard" setting for third-party keyboards. You can reorder the list so yours is first in the cycle, but after a restart the system keyboard appears first.
Why does the keyboard change when I type a phone number?
That field asked iOS for a number or phone pad. Specialised keyboard types are drawn by the system, so your general keyboard is not shown there.
How do I stop cycling through keyboards I do not use?
Press and hold the globe key to pick directly from a list, and remove keyboards you never use in Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
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.