What This Keyboard Add-On Actually Does
GIF Keyboard by Tenor is a Google-owned keyboard extension that sits on top of your existing keyboard app and lets you search millions of GIFs and short videos to drop into texts, Messenger, WhatsApp, and other chat apps. You can search by keyword or emoji, browse trending categories, and add captions to GIFs before sending. It’s built for anyone who communicates mostly in memes and reaction GIFs rather than words, and it works as both a standalone app and a plug-in for other apps like WhatsApp that license Tenor’s search directly.
Where It Still Works Well
When it’s functioning as intended, the core idea holds up: typing a mood or emoji and getting a wall of relevant GIFs is genuinely useful, and one reviewer noted that using Tenor’s search inside WhatsApp’s built-in GIF button worked fine with no lag at all, which suggests the underlying search and content library are solid. The category browsing for reactions and trending topics is also appreciated by users who just want inspiration rather than a specific search term.
The Bugs That Keep Piling Up
The standalone app is where things fall apart for a lot of long-time users. Multiple reviewers report that GIFs now send as a static still image instead of an animated GIF, and the caption feature has reportedly stopped working outright, either freezing on ‘Next’ or stripping the caption entirely before sending. Several people describe a persistent ‘Could not connect to internet’ error that pops up even while every other app on their phone is online, and one user said the app simply stopped opening and kept redirecting to the Play Store for days in a row, despite reinstalling more than once.
Losing Your Saved GIFs Is a Real Risk
Beyond crashes, there’s a data problem: several reviewers describe losing years of saved and favorited GIFs after switching phones or after uninstalling and reinstalling, even while logged into the same account. One user said an update in late March logged them out and wiped their favorites, though support did eventually restore the favorites list, just not the custom GIF packs. If you’ve built up a curated collection over time, that’s not a small annoyance, it’s the whole reason to use the app in the first place.
Performance Complaints Are Consistent Across Reviews
Independent of the caption and sync issues, a recurring theme is that the app has become slow and laggy, with search results sometimes rendering as empty grey boxes, and load times that make people give up and switch to competitors like Giphy. This isn’t one isolated report, it shows up across several of the most-upvoted reviews, which suggests a real regression in app performance rather than a one-off device issue.
Who Should Actually Download This
If you already rely on Tenor’s GIF search through an app like WhatsApp that embeds it directly, you’re probably fine and don’t need the standalone keyboard at all. If you’re considering installing the dedicated GIF Keyboard app itself, go in expecting occasional caption failures, possible loss of saved GIFs on a phone switch or reinstall, and stretches where the app simply won’t connect. It’s still a massive library with real utility when it works, but the reliability issues reported by heavy users are frequent enough that casual GIF senders may be better served by a competitor or by using Tenor search where it’s built into an app you already trust.
