How-to

How to reset the keyboard dictionary on iPhone, or fix just one word

Published 21 October 2026 · 4 min read

Your iPhone learns words as you type, and sometimes it learns the wrong ones: a typo you let through, a misspelling it now suggests with confidence. Apple gives you one way to clear it, and it clears everything. Here is where it is, what it does, and what to try first.

How to reset it

1. Open Settings › General.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone, then Reset.
3. Tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary and enter your passcode.
4. Confirm.

Be careful on those screens: their other items reset much more. Reset All Settings also resets the keyboard dictionary, along with all your other settings, and Erase All Content and Settings erases the phone.

What it erases, and what it keeps

Apple describes the keyboard dictionary as the words you have added, and says you add them by rejecting words iPhone suggests as you type. Resetting it erases only those words. Your messages, notes and apps are untouched.

One thing to check first: Apple’s page on text replacements warns that resetting deletes custom words and shortcuts. If you rely on Text Replacement shortcuts in Settings › General › Keyboard › Text Replacement, take a screenshot of the list before you reset, so you can put back any that disappear.

After the reset, expect predictions to feel generic for a while. The words you type every day — names, places, the way you spell things — have to be learned again.

Try these before you reset

A reset is a big hammer for what is usually one bad word.

• Reject it a few times. Apple’s guide to predictive text says that if you reject the same suggestion a few times, iPhone stops suggesting it. Undo the correction with backspace, or tap your own spelling in the suggestion bar.
• Use Text Replacement for a word it keeps changing. A common workaround is to add the word you want as a Text Replacement phrase, so iPhone has a version of it you chose.
• Check for a second keyboard. If corrections come in the wrong language, the problem is the keyboard, not the dictionary — see why the iPhone keyboard switches language.

Why there is only one button

Apple’s keyboard keeps no list you can look at. It knows the words it has learned, but it does not show them, so it cannot offer to delete one. The only way to remove a word you did not mean to teach it is to remove all of them.

How Pilcrow handles its dictionary

Pilcrow, the keyboard we make, was designed around the opposite idea: everything it learns from you is a list you can read.

• Delete one word. Hold any suggestion in the keyboard, or open the Dictionary tab in the app, and remove exactly that word. Or block it, so it is never suggested again.
• See why it knows it. Words, phrases, preferred spellings and the corrections you turned down each have their own list, with how often you used them.
• It forgets on its own. A word learned from a couple of sightings and never used again retires. A correction you refused by accident is released once you write the word properly a few times.
• Don’t learn here. Set any field to not be learned from, so a one-off never becomes a habit.
• Back it up. Save everything it has learned to one dated file and restore it later or on a new phone. A restore merges: words learned since are kept.
• Or start again. Forget everything is still there, and it is instant and on the device.

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

Sources

1. Apple, Reset iPhone settings to their defaults (Reset Keyboard Dictionary; Reset All Settings)
2. Apple, Set up shorthand for frequently used text on iPhone (Text Replacement; what a reset deletes)
3. Apple, Use predictive text on iPhone (rejecting a suggestion a few times)