The Chromebook On-screen keyboard can be pretty useful and even essential in tablet mode. However, some users report that the Chromebook On-screen keyboard keeps popping up repeatedly even when users don’t intend to use it. We made sure to provide some solutions for this problem below.
Table of contents:
- Disable the On-screen keyboard in the Accessibility settings
- Disable Virtual Keyboard in Chrome Flags
- Perform a Hardware reset
How to disable the On-screen Keyboard on your Chromebook
You can disable the On-Screen keyboard on your Chromebook in Settings > Advanced > Accessibility. If that doesn’t work, make sure to check the Virtual Keyboard flag in Experimental settings.
Finally, you can try hardware reset or restore your device to factory settings with Powerwash.
1. Disable the On-screen keyboard in the Accessibility settings
The first thing we can recommend is disabling the On-screen Keyboard in Settings. Have in mind that, on devices with a touch screen, the shift to the tablet mode will bring up the On-screen keyboard automatically. To enable and disable the On-screen keyboard, you need to navigate to Advanced system settings and find the option under Accessibility.
Here’s how to disable the On-Screen keyboard on your Chromebook:
- On your Chromebook, open Settings.
- Choose Advanced from the left pane.
- Select Accessibility.
- Under the Keyboard and text input section, disable Enable on-screen keyboard.
2. Disable Virtual Keyboard in Chrome Flags
Alternatively, you can try disabling Virtual Keyboard in Chrome Experimental Settings. This should be disabled by default, but there are reports that certain ChromeOS versions enabled this feature thus causing the issues with the on-screen keyboard repeatedly popping up. While there, you might consider enabling Recycling Bin and some other useful chrome flags.
Here’s how to disable the Virtual Keyboard flag on your Chromebook:
- Open the Chrome browser on your Chromebook.
- In the Address bar, type chrome://flags.
- In the search bar, look for Virtual Keyboard.
- Click or tap on the box next to Virtual Keyboard and select Disabled.
- Restart your Chromebook and check for changes.
Some users even suggest switching update channels from Stable to Beta where the problem is seemingly not present. To do that, navigate to Settings > About ChromeOS > Additional details > Change channel.
3. Perform a Hardware reset
Finally, you can try fixing the issue with a hardware reset or even go and Powerwash (factory reset) your Chromebook. To perform a hardware reset on your Chromebook, you need to power off the Chromebook first. Once you’ve done that, press and hold both the Power button and the Refresh button simultaneously. Release the Refresh button once the splash screen appears.
On the other hand, if that didn’t work, make sure to back up your Chromebook and navigate to Settings > Advanced > Reset settings. Choose Powerwash to reset your Chromebook to factory settings. You can restore it after it boots by signing in with your Google Account.
With that said, we can conclude this article, and thank you for reading it. Do you have any alternative solutions to suggest? Tell us in the comments below.
