T9 (Nine-Key) Input ^2026.03

Oh-my-rime includes a built-in T9 (nine-key) input scheme, primarily designed for iOS Hamster IME and Yuan Shu IME users, bringing the full Mint dictionary experience to mobile nine-key input.

What is T9 Input?

T9 is the classic mobile phone input method: the keyboard has only 9 number keys, each corresponding to multiple letters (e.g., 2 = ABC, 3 = DEF). You press number keys and the IME predicts candidate words based on the key combinations.

Scheme Features

The Mint T9 scheme (t9.schema.yaml) is built on top of the Mint full-pinyin scheme and inherits its core features:

Feature	Description
Dictionary	Shares the same dictionary (rime_mint) as Mint full-pinyin
Lua Features	Supports time/date/solar terms, calculator, etc.
Emoji	Supports Emoji input
Simplified/Traditional	Supports switching between Simplified and Traditional Chinese
Word Separator	Press 1 to manually insert a word separator

Demo

Basic Input

On a nine-key keyboard, press number keys to input the digit sequence corresponding to the pinyin, and the IME will automatically match candidate words.

For example For example, to type「你好」(nǐ hǎo):

• 你 = nǐ → initial n(6) + final i(4) → press 64
• 好 = hǎo → initial h(4) + final ao(26) → press 426

Word Separation

When the candidate doesn't match your intent, press 1 to manually insert a separator, splitting the input into multiple independent pinyin segments:

Input: 64 1 426
Parse: ni | hao → 你好

Lua Features

The T9 scheme also supports Lua function keys. Use the digit sequence corresponding to the letter codes:

Feature	Letter Code	Nine-Key Digits
Time	osj	674
Date	orq	677
Lunar Calendar	onl	665
Day of Week	oxq	697
Calculator	=expression	=expression

Platform Support

The T9 scheme is primarily used on:

• iOS Hamster IME: Native nine-key keyboard layout support, best experience
• Yuan Shu IME: Also supports nine-key layout

Desktop Note

On desktop platforms (Windows/macOS/Linux), the T9 scheme can be loaded but without a nine-key keyboard layout, the experience is essentially the same as full-pinyin. Desktop users are recommended to use the Mint full-pinyin or double-pinyin schemes.

Activating the Scheme

The T9 scheme is activated by default in oh-my-rime. You can view it in default.yaml:

# The following content may be overridden by default.custom.yaml and schema configurations
## T9 depends on rime_mint; if you need to use other schemes (e.g., T9 for Xiaohe Double Pinyin), 
## you can override with a custom file
schema_list:
  - schema: rime_mint            # Mint Pinyin
  - schema: double_pinyin_flypy  # Xiaohe Double Pinyin
  - schema: rime_mint_flypy      # Mint Pinyin-Xiaohe Mixed Input
  - schema: terra_pinyin         # Terra Pinyin-Mint Custom
  - schema: wubi98_mint          # Wubi 98-Wubi Xiaozhu
  - schema: wubi86_jidian        # Wubi 86-Jidian 86
  - schema: t9                   # Hamster T9-Full Pinyin
  # The following schemes are adapted by Mint but not activated by default
  # - schema: double_pinyin_abc    # Smart ABC Double Pinyin
  # - schema: double_pinyin_mspy   # Microsoft Double Pinyin
  # - schema: double_pinyin_sogou  # Sogou Double Pinyin
  # - schema: double_pinyin_ziguang # Ziguang Double Pinyin
  # - schema: double_pinyin         # Natural Code Double Pinyin

If the T9 scheme is not in your scheme list, add it to default.yaml or default.custom.yaml:

# default.custom.yaml
patch:
  schema_list:
    - schema: rime_mint
    - schema: t9          # Add T9 scheme

You also need to enable the T9 scheme (Input Scheme Settings) and the nine-key layout (Keyboard Settings - Keyboard Layout - Chinese 9-Key). For Yuan Shu IME reference: Yuan Shu IME - T9 Configuration.