How To Fix Keyboard Not Appearing on iOS 14

Trying to respond to an email or reply to a message but your keyboard doesn’t appear?

Apple’s recent release of the iOS 14 and watchOS 7 have been making headlines for their awesome new features. The iPhone alone was introduced to widget customizations, the new App Library, interface layout changes, and more through the iOS 14 update.

For Apple Watch enthusiasts, the Handwashing mode, Sleep Tracking, and new workout options have been a delightful addition to the handy device. However, Apple’s official forum has been populated with a lot of recent problems regarding the update.

Here at Saint, we make sure to provide our readers with timely solutions, explanations, and fixes to ease user experience. Fixing your keyboard should only take a few minutes, so let’s get started.

Here’s what you can do!

 

1. General Troubleshoot.

Let’s start by troubleshooting your phone for general problems. Before we start fiddling with your settings or perhaps updating your software, trying out these simple fixes can save you a lot of time.

Have you recently picked up a meal? Grime or sauce on your screen, although not immediately visible, can confuse your iPhone to thinking this is your thumbprint. Try to examine your phone’s screen as well as cleaning it with a microfiber cloth.

Once you’re done wiping your screen, closing your apps should be the next thing on your list. This will terminate all applications that could simultaneously be using your keyboard. This is effective as certain apps can bug out and decline your phone from opening a new keyboard instance on your screen.

general troubleshoot close apps

Lastly, if you’ve recently connected your iPhone to a Bluetooth keyboard, try turning off your Bluetooth and restarting your mobile device. This will terminate any duplicate keyboard instances that could be confusing your phone.

 

2. Disable Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions and Reduce Motion.

After spending hours scouring through for solutions, these two fixes are the most effective which we’ve found so far.

Cross-Fade transitions and animated motions are a purely aesthetic addition to your iPhone experience. This option is responsible for animating certain windows of your iPhone, like your keyboard, to smoothly jump in and out of your screen.

Turning both these options off has been a recurring fix for iPhone users who have had only recently updated to the new iOS 14.

Here’s how you can disable ‘Prefer Cross-fade Transitions’ and ‘Reduce Motion’ on your iPhone:

  1. First, open up your Settings and head to Accessibility.
  2. Now, navigate to Motion. A list of optional visual effects should be present.
  3. Finally, disable both Reduce Motion and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions.

Restart your iPhone for good measure and see if that fixes your issue. Go ahead and proceed to the next method to understand why restarting any device is a good fix for software issues.

 

3. Restart Your iPhone.

A timeless solution to any technological device is restarting it. Rebooting or restarting your iPhone will terminate any software problems currently instanced in your system. This will iron out any bugs or glitches that could be messing with your keyboard.

Once your phone reboots, your programs should run like normal which will hopefully fix your keyboard issue.

Now contrary to most articles you’ll find online, ‘force restarting’ your iPhone is not the Holy Grail of iPhone fixes. In fact, force restarting your iPhone is no different from a regular restart and is potentially hazardous to your device.

force restart

Restarting your device will reset it on the software level, which is all that’s necessary for all software related problems. Furthermore, the ability to ‘force restart’ your iPhone was only added by Apple as a solution for iPhones that have crashed and frozen which cannot be restarted the conventional way. This means that doing a ‘force restart’ will reset your iPhone on the hardware level and directly cut off your phone’s power to the battery, forcing it to reset.

This can be harmful to your device as background processes that continually run behind the scenes will be left with unsaved progress. Since you most likely aren’t suffering from a frozen iPhone that just crashed, force rebooting your phone is completely unnecessary.

Here’s how you can restart your iPhone the safe way:

  1. Let’s start by pressing on the power button located on the right side of your phone. Hold this for a couple of seconds until a red ‘Slide to power off’ slider appears.

fix keyboard not appearing on ios 14

  1. Next, drag the slider to the right. This will turn off your device.
  2. Finally, when your phone has fully turned off, wait for a couple of seconds and hold down the power button again to turn it back on.

Your iPhone should be done restarting, go ahead and test your keyboard to see if the issue still persists.

 

4. Install A Third-Party Keyboard App.

An underrated solution that’s often disregarded by most articles is installing a third-party keyboard app. We at Saint believe that you most likely have this issue due to the new iOS 14’s bugs and glitches.

Rest assured, Apple should be fixing this issue and will hopefully release a patch full of fixes for its next update. Meanwhile, installing a third-party keyboard app will run an entirely different application instance on your device, which shouldn’t be affected like your default keyboard.

A reliable third-party keyboard isn’t that hard to find. But if you need some ideas on third-party keyboards, check out our in-depth guide on How to Change Keyboard and Keyboard Color on iPhone.

 

5. Reset All Your iPhone’s Settings.

If you’re having problems with a lot of other features on your iPhone, like your Bluetooth or your Camera app not working.

Resetting all your iPhone’s settings might be in your best interest. When updating to the new iOS, Apple has allowed its users to retain their personal preferences and settings after the update.

This saves us, the consumers, the time and effort of manually going through the settings again to change them back to how we prefer them. However, updating your iOS can have complications that can unknowingly reset or corrupt your personal preferences.

If so, this solution will nuke all your settings back to their default orientation, which should fix any complications related to your settings.

Here’s how you can reset all your iPhone’s settings:

  1. Start by opening your Settings and navigating to General.
  2. Now, scroll down to the bottom of your screen and tap on Reset.
  3. After that, a list of all the sectors on your iPhone that you can reset should be displayed. For the purposes of this method, just select Reset All Settings.

fix keyboard not appearing on ios 14

  1. You should be asked to enter your Passcode, fill this in, and proceed through the prompts to fully reset your phone.
  2. Finally, your iPhone will completely restart. Once it powers back on, go ahead and test your keyboard.

Don’t forget to redo and set all the settings on your iPhone back to how you preferred them.

 

6. Factory Reset Your iPhone.

If all the methods above did not work, then perhaps factory resetting your iPhone might be your only solution. A factory reset will reformat your entire phone, clearing any personal data and installing a fresh iOS 14 operating system on your device.

Don’t worry, as we will be backing up your files so you can restore them and have everything function just like normal. However, we feel that it’s important to remind you that the new iOS 14 has a lot of bugs. If you’re reading this recently after it was released, then chances are you’re suffering from a software glitch on your device due to iOS 14.

Waiting for the next patch might be in your best interest, as this should come with fixes for problems like this. However, if you’re still interested in factory resetting your phone, then you can refer to this link for more instructions.

fix keyboard not appearing on ios 14

Now, just like ‘force restarting’, going into DFU mode is not the ultimate secret fix for resetting your phone either. Once again, there are a lot of misleading articles out there that claim using the DFU mode to restart and recover your phone is better, but these are merely incorrect.

DFU mode was developed by Apple for devices that have problems with booting up and/or entering into Recovery Mode the conventional way. For phones that have trouble with this, DFU mode will boot your phone and automatically detect if your iPhone is connected to a computer. Once it finds out it is connected, it will launch into Recovery Mode, and your iPhone will appear on iTunes and Finder.

Going into Recovery mode the standard way or the DFU mode method will make no difference to your factory reset.

Now that you’ve reached the end of this article, we hope that we’ve helped resolve your ‘Keyboard not Appearing on iOS 14’ issue. At the same time, if you have any questions regarding the article, feel free to leave a comment down below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

Author

  • Mako Young

    Mako is a staff writer at Saint. He's been writing about tech for more than a decade. When he isn't reading about the latest news on Apple, he's busy studying cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, cloud computing, and other IT-related sectors. His exceptional work graces technology and Apple-related blogs like How-To Geek, VEED.io, Macgasm, onMac, PhotoWorkout, GameRant, and many more. He also has a Bachelors in Computer Science and has been writing since 2018, with over 400 posts published. LinkedIn X (Twitter)

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