The QuickType bar added to the virtual keyboard in iOS seems to either be loved or hated, and while it can be quite good at predicting what words to type next, it can also be a nuisance as it takes up valuable screen real estate on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Fortunately, like so many other things in iOS, you can quickly choose to disable or hide the QuickType bar from the keyboard completely, so if you either don’t like it or just don’t want to see it temporarily, you can use a speedy trick to quickly dismiss the suggested word bar.



We’ll focus on the most reliable method that instantly hides (or reveals) the QuickType suggestions. In order to try it out yourself, you’ll want to be somewhere that the iOS keyboard is visible and QuickType suggestions are offered, which should be just about any text entry box.

Instantly Hide the QuickType Bar from the Keyboard on iPhone or iPad

Tap and hold directly on the QuickType bar, you can tap and hold on the bar itself or a word, it doesn’t matter, then while still holding, drag down your finger to hide the QuickType bar

This instantly hides the QuickType bar which is indicated by the little grey line and the tiny handlebar indicator. That handlebar also indicates that you can reveal the QuickType bar again by repeating the same action but in the opposite direction, which we’ll cover in a moment.

Note this does not disable the QuickType bar, it simply hides it temporarily. This can be great to reveal more screen space on a temporary basis, or for users who only sometimes want to use the QuickType feature, or sometimes not use it.

Show the QuickType Suggestion Bar Above the iOS Keyboard

Want to see the QuickType word suggestion bar again? No sweat, that’s very easy too:

Tap and hold on the handlebar, then drag up to reveal the QuickType bar above the iOS keyboard again

Because it takes up the equivalent of another key row, it almost feels like QuickType was built more for the iPad, iPhone, and iPhone Plus with the larger screens, as it’s quite cramped on models earlier than iPhone 6 like an iPhone 4S or even on the iPhone 5 and iPod touch series. The smaller screen devices in particularly are probably more likely to want to hide QuickType if not disable it outright, which can be done through Keyboard Settings in iOS. For users of smaller screens (or anyone really) who want to type a bit faster in iOS, adding a good third party keyboard to iOS can often be a better solution to QuickType, since it won’t take up any additional screen space and some of the gesture-based keyboards work very well for fast typing.