Why can’t I paste on a third-party iPhone keyboard?
A Paste button drawn into a keyboard’s own toolbar is not the same thing as the iOS paste menu, and only one of the two needs Full Access.
Typing works, autocorrect works, the theme looks right — and then you tap the Paste button on the keyboard itself and nothing happens, or a small message appears where the pasted text should be. This is not a broken keyboard. It is one specific button asking for a permission you have not granted yet.
Two different things are both called “paste”
iOS has always let you paste without any keyboard involved: double-tap or long-press inside a text field, tap Select or Select All, then tap Paste in the little menu that pops up above the text. That menu belongs to the text field itself, not to whatever keyboard happens to be on screen underneath it. It works with Apple’s keyboard, with any third-party keyboard, and with Full Access left off, because the keyboard extension is not the thing doing the pasting.
A Paste button built into a keyboard’s own toolbar is a different mechanism entirely. For that button to work, the keyboard extension itself has to reach out, read whatever is on the system clipboard, and insert it into the text field on your behalf. That is code running inside the extension, not the system menu, and it needs a permission the system menu never has to ask for.
Why the extension can’t just read the clipboard
A keyboard extension runs sandboxed by default, mainly because of what a clipboard can contain. People copy one-time codes out of Messages, passwords out of a password manager, card numbers out of Wallet or a banking app. If any keyboard extension could quietly read the pasteboard the instant it was active, that would be a standing risk on every phone, for every keyboard, all the time — so iOS blocks clipboard access from inside an extension until you explicitly say otherwise.
That “otherwise” is Full Access. It is a single switch, not a menu of individual permissions, so turning it on for the clipboard also lifts the same sandbox around network access and shared storage with the keyboard’s own app — even for a keyboard that only ever intends to use the clipboard piece. That is exactly why iOS shows the alarming warning it does when you flip the switch: it genuinely cannot tell you which of those the keyboard will use, only that all of them are now technically possible.
Turning it on
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
- Tap the keyboard whose Paste button you want to work.
- Turn on “Allow Full Access” and confirm on the warning that follows.
No restart is needed. Go back to the app you were typing in and the Paste button should work on the next tap.
If you would rather not turn it on
You do not have to. The native iOS paste menu described above works regardless, on every keyboard, with Full Access off, because it never routes through the extension at all. Leaving Full Access off just means the keyboard’s own Paste button — the shortcut — stays inactive; the underlying ability to paste text is never actually missing.
Where Kibo fits
Kibo ships with Full Access off by default, and everything about it works that way: typing, all themes, all key sounds, all backlight effects, emoji, kaomoji, the fancy text styles and all 30 languages. The clipboard is the one place in the app Full Access is ever read — it gates the Copy word, Copy line and Paste buttons on the keyboard toolbar specifically, and those three show a short message instead of acting if the switch is off. Nothing else in Kibo asks for it, and there is no server for it to send anything to even if it did.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Paste button on my keyboard greyed out or unresponsive?
That button needs to read the system clipboard from inside the keyboard extension, which iOS blocks by default. Turn on Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → [the keyboard] → Allow Full Access to enable it.
Can I paste without turning on Full Access at all?
Yes. Long-press or double-tap the text field, then use the Paste option in the menu that appears. That is a system feature of the text field, not the keyboard, so it works with any keyboard and with Full Access off.
Does enabling Full Access just for pasting give the keyboard my passwords?
Not from a secure field — iOS forces its own keyboard on password and payment fields no matter what is installed or enabled. Full Access does lift the sandbox in general, though, which is why it is worth trusting a keyboard’s stated reason before turning it on.
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.