How-to

Predictive text on iPhone: how it works, how to turn it off, and how to make it useful

Published 3 October 2026 · 5 min read

Predictive text is the row of words above your keyboard, and on newer versions of iOS the grey words that appear ahead of your cursor. Used well it saves a lot of typing. Used badly it is a distraction that occasionally inserts the wrong word. The difference is mostly in a few settings and habits.

The two kinds of prediction

The suggestion row

As you type, Apple’s keyboard shows suggested words, emoji and information above the keys. Tap one to put it in. To reject them, tap your original word, shown in quotation marks, or just keep typing. Between words, the row offers the word you are likely to type next.

Inline predictions

Predictions that would finish the word or phrase you are typing can also appear in the text itself, in grey. Apple’s instructions:

• Accept: tap the space bar.
• Reject: keep typing.
• Change your mind: tap Delete, then tap the word you were in the middle of typing.

Inline predictions are available in far fewer languages than the suggestion row. On Apple’s iOS 27 Feature Availability page, the list for inline predictive text has 17 entries, against 57 for predictive text itself.

How to turn predictive text off, or just part of it

1. While typing, touch and hold the emoji key or the globe key.
2. Tap Keyboard Settings.
3. Turn off Show Predictions Inline to lose only the grey text, or Predictive Text to lose the suggestion row as well.

The same switches are in Settings › General › Keyboard. Apple notes that turning off Predictive Text turns off both kinds, and that you may still see corrections for misspelled words afterwards. Correcting is Auto-Correction’s job, a separate switch, which how to turn off autocorrect on iPhone covers.

What it learns from

Apple says the choices it shows are based on your past conversations, your writing style and even websites you visit in Safari. That is why predictions improve with use, and why they sometimes surprise you with a word you only typed once.

It is also why a mistake can stick. If the keyboard has learned a misspelling or an unwanted word, Apple’s remedy is Settings › General › Transfer or Reset iPhone › Reset › Reset Keyboard Dictionary, which erases every word you have added, not just the bad one.

Why predictions suggest odd words

• Three slots are not many. If the word you want is fourth, you never see it, and the three you do see can look random.
• The wrong language. Predictions come from the language the keyboard thinks you are writing. Switch language mid-message and the row can keep guessing in the old one for a while.
• Something it learned from you. A typo you accepted once can come back as a suggestion.
• Too little context. At the start of a message there is nothing to predict from, so suggestions are generic until a few words are in.

Getting more out of it

• Look up for long words. Glancing at the row after two or three letters of a long word is where a prediction pays off most; a short word is usually quicker to finish yourself.
• Use the next-word slot. After a space, the row often already has your next word. A tap there replaces a whole word of typing.
• Make shortcuts for long phrases. Apple’s Text Replacement turns a short code into a longer phrase. Its own example is typing “GM” to get “Good morning”. Add your own in Settings › General › Keyboard › Text Replacement.
• Reject bad suggestions. Tapping your own word in quotes tells the keyboard that you meant it.

How Pilcrow predicts

Pilcrow, the keyboard we make, treats the suggestion bar as the place where the typing is saved, and measures it that way.

• It saves 27–35 % of keystrokes from predictions and completions, measured on held-out text before it has learned anything about you. The range is the spread across the languages it ships.
• The model runs on your phone. For languages that have one, a small language model on the device does the predicting, and it answers in about a millisecond per keystroke, measured at the 95th percentile on the phone. Nothing is sent away to be guessed at; the keyboard contains no networking code.
• More than three slots, if you want them. Choose an iOS-style bar with three fixed slots, or Pilcrow’s, which shows every word at its own width and scrolls for more.
• Your phrases, one tap. It learns phrases you repeat. Turn on Whole phrases in Settings › Corrections & learning and something you write often, a greeting, an address or a sign-off, is offered as a single tap.
• Every language you enable. Predictions follow what you are writing word by word, across all the languages you have turned on.
• Remove one bad suggestion, not everything. Long-press a suggestion to forget a learned word, or block it for good, without leaving the keyboard. Everything it has learned is a list you can read and edit one line at a time.
• It keeps some fields to itself. Set a field to Don’t learn here and nothing typed there is kept. Password, one-time-code and card fields teach it nothing whatever the settings say.

Last checked October 2026 against Apple’s iPhone User Guide and Feature Availability page for iOS 27. If anything here is out of date, write to info@pilcrowtype.com.

Sources

1. Apple, Use predictive text on iPhone (accepting, rejecting and turning off suggestions and inline predictions)
2. Apple, How to use Auto-Correction and predictive text on your iPhone (what predictions are based on; Text Replacement example)
3. Apple, iOS and iPadOS 27 Feature Availability (predictive text and inline predictive text languages)
4. Apple, Set up shorthand for frequently used text on iPhone (Text Replacement)
5. Apple, Reset iPhone settings to their defaults (Reset Keyboard Dictionary)