What if my Gboard dictionary doesn't transfer when I switch phones?
■ Gboard dictionary not transferring!
I often use emoticons and special symbols on social media, so
I wanted to bring the words I registered on my PC over to my smartphone.
However,
when I got a new smartphone (Android) this time, even though I imported the Gboard dictionary I used on my previous device,
for some reason, they didn't appear in the conversion candidates at all.
They look like they are registered, but I can't use them.
“Why, even though it's a transfer from Gboard to Gboard?”
I was troubled by this for a while.
Suddenly, I remembered something I had done before.
It was the procedure I used when I moved my PC (Windows) IME (*1) dictionary to Gboard.
What I did before followed this flow
Export the IME dictionary data and look at the structure
Manually register just 2-3 words in Gboard, export it, and look at the structure
Format the IME data in Excel and import it to match the Gboard format
This time, it turned out I just needed to do the same thing.
The IME and Gboard dictionaries have slightly different structures
The PC is Windows, and the smartphone is Android.
First, when you export the IME dictionary,
it becomes a text file called output.txt.
On the other hand, Gboard uses
a slightly unusual format where Dictionary.txt is zipped (*2).
When I pasted both into Excel and compared them, the differences in structure became clear.
You might be curious because the terms I have registered
are a bit too eccentric,
but please ignore that...
I will continue the explanation.
You can see that the IME has three pieces of data arranged with tab separation as shown below.
• IME: Reading / Word / Part of speech
Gboard was,
• Gboard: Reading/Word/Locale Code (*3)
This is how it was configured in previous versions.
However, there was an important change here.
■ Gboard specifications had changed
As of December 2025, the Gboard dictionary had a 3-column structure of
Reading/Word/Locale Code
.
However, as of February 17, 2026, Gboard had changed to a 4-column structure of
Reading/Word/Locale Code/Part of Speech
.
In other words,
the reason why trying to migrate the dictionary between Gboard instances didn't work was because the specifications had changed.
■ Trying to convert IME data to Gboard format in Excel
So, I added a locale code (ja-JP) column before the IME part-of-speech column and
formatted it as text to match the Gboard format.
Using Excel, it is easy to create a ja-JP column.
However, you cannot import it with just this.
As I mentioned earlier,
Gboard has additional conditions.
• The file name must be Dictionary.txt
• It must be compressed in zip format
If these two conditions are not met, it will not load.
Matching the file name and zipping it...
It imported successfully!
■ Summary:
A dictionary only works when the "structure + file name + zip" are all correct.
These were the three key points this time.
• The Gboard dictionary structure had changed from "3 columns → 4 columns"
• The dictionary structure differs between IME and Gboard
• Gboard only accepts "Dictionary.txt" that has been zipped
If you format it in Excel, you can freely edit your PC and smartphone dictionaries, and
even if you change your smartphone, you can take your registered words with you.
I hope this is helpful for anyone else who gets stuck on the same thing.
■ *1 What is IME (Input Method Editor)?
It is the Japanese input software that comes pre-installed on Windows.
The formal name is Input Method Editor.
It is that mechanism that converts to Japanese when you type romaji on the keyboard.
Word registration is also done here.
■ *2 What is zip?
It is a format for bundling multiple files together and **compressing (reducing the size)** them.
• To make folders smaller and easier to carry
• To make them easier to send and receive via email or apps
• To be able to handle them as a single "package"
It is often used for purposes such as these.
It is the most common compression format that can be handled on both Windows and smartphones without installing special software.
Gboard dictionary data also
must be a zipped Dictionary.txt
to be imported.
■ *3 What is a locale code (ja-JP)?
It is a code used to represent a language + country as a set.
• Japanese in Japan → ja-JP
• English in America → en-US
• English in the UK → en-GB
Because notation and usage differ by country even for the same language,
it is used to distinguish "which country's language it is."
In Gboard, this locale code is included in the dictionary data, and
it is the point that creates the structural difference from IME.