TalkBack gestures let you navigate quickly on your Android device.
There are three types of gestures in TalkBack: basic gestures, back-and-forth gestures and angle gestures. For all gestures use a single motion, a steady speed and even finger pressure.
Basic gestures
|
Action |
Gesture |
|---|---|
| Move to next item on screen | Swipe right |
| Move to previous item on screen | Swipe left |
| Cycle through navigation settings | Swipe up or down |
| Select focused item | Double-tap |
Back-and-forth gestures
|
Action |
Swipe |
|---|---|
| Move to first item on screen | Up then down |
| Move to last item on screen | Down then up |
| Scroll forward (if you're on a page longer than one screen) |
Right then left |
| Scroll back (if you're on a page longer than one screen) |
Left then right |
| Move slider up (such as volume) |
Right then left |
| Move slider down (such as volume) |
Left then right |
Angle gestures
These gestures are two-part swipes at a right angle. For example, the default gesture for going to the Home screen is to swipe up then left at a sharp 90-degree angle.
|
Action |
Swipe |
|---|---|
| Home | Up then left |
| Back | Down then left |
| Overview | Left then up |
| Notifications | Right then down (see note below) |
| Screen search | Left then down |
| Open local context menu | Up then right |
| Open global context menu | Down then right |
Note: The Notifications gesture (right then down) is available only in some TalkBack versions. If this gesture doesn't work for you, use a two-finger swipe down from the top of the screen to open the notifications shade.
Tip: Use two-finger gestures
All TalkBack gestures use one finger. As long as you only use one finger on the screen, your touch or gesture is only interpreted by TalkBack.
When you use two or more fingers, your touch or gesture goes straight to the app, rather than to TalkBack. For example, you can scroll by dragging two fingers.
In some apps, you can zoom by putting two fingers on the screen and pinching them together or pulling them apart. These gestures work normally with TalkBack on, since they use two fingers.
Tip: Customise TalkBack gestures
For the one-finger gestures listed above, you can keep the default gestures or assign new actions to the gestures.
To reassign actions to gestures:
- Open your device's Settings app
.
- Select Accessibility, then TalkBack.
- Select Settings, then Gestures.
- Select the gesture to which you want to assign a new action.
- Note: If your Android device has a fingerprint sensor, you can use fingerprint gestures with TalkBack.
- Select the action that you want to assign to the gesture. Along with the actions listed in the tables above, you can assign the following actions to gestures:
- Open Quick Settings
- Read from top
- Read from next item
- Show actions
- Editing
- Languages
- Perform click
.