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How-to

How to turn off autocorrect on iPhone: everywhere, for one word, or in one app

Published · 5 min read

Turning autocorrect off takes one switch. Deciding how much of it to turn off is the harder part, because the switch is all or nothing, and many people only want it to stop doing one particular thing.

The short answer. Go to Settings › General › Keyboard and turn off Auto-Correction. Leave Check Spelling and Grammar on if you still want typos underlined. To stop one word being changed, undo the correction straight away. There is no per-app switch in iOS, and the switch does not reach third-party keyboards, which have settings of their own.

Turn it off everywhere

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap General, then Keyboard.
  3. Under All Keyboards, turn Auto-Correction off.

There is a shortcut from inside any app: touch and hold the emoji key or the globe key on the keyboard, then tap Keyboard Settings. Apple notes that Auto-Correction is on by default, so a new iPhone or a reset one will have it back on.

What still happens after you turn it off

Auto-Correction is one of several separate typing features, so switching it off does not make the keyboard silent.

  • Suggestions still appear above the keyboard. That is Predictive Text, a separate switch on the same screen. Turning it off also turns off the grey inline predictions. Our guide to predictive text on iPhone explains what each part does.
  • Corrections can still be offered. Apple notes that with Predictive Text off you may continue to see corrections for misspelled words. A space, punctuation or Return accepts one; tapping the “x” rejects it.
  • Capitals are separate too. Auto-Capitalization has its own switch, if the thing you want gone is capital letters you did not type.

The middle setting: keep spell check, lose autocorrect

On iOS 27 the same screen has a switch Apple calls Check Spelling and Grammar. With Auto-Correction off and this left on, words it doubts are underlined in red and nothing is changed. Tap an underlined word to see suggestions and pick one, or ignore it. For many people this is what they wanted all along: the keyboard points, and you decide. There is more on each of Apple’s checking tools in how to spell check on iPhone.

Stop it changing just one word

If autocorrect is mostly fine and one word keeps being “fixed”, you do not need to turn anything off.

Undo it the moment it happens

A corrected word is briefly underlined. Tap it and choose your own spelling, which Apple lists first. Apple says words you reject are added to the keyboard dictionary, and that if you reject the same suggestion a few times, iPhone stops suggesting it.

Protect it with Text Replacement

For a word that keeps coming back, Apple describes adding it under Settings › General › Keyboard › Text Replacement with the word as the phrase and the shortcut left empty. Why iPhone autocorrect changes words you typed correctly covers this and the other fixes in detail.

Turn it off in one app only

iOS has no per-app autocorrect setting. Apple’s switches sit under All Keyboards and apply everywhere you type.

What does exist is a per-field setting that app developers control. Apple’s developer documentation describes a property on every text field, autocorrectionType, which decides whether autocorrection is enabled while typing in it. That is why a search box or a code editor in some apps never corrects anything: its developer switched it off for that field. If an app you use has not, it is worth asking its developer to.

The practical workaround is a second keyboard set up differently. Add it in Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards › Add New Keyboard and switch to it with the globe key in the app where you want no corrections.

On a third-party keyboard

If you type with Gboard, SwiftKey or another keyboard from the App Store, Apple’s Auto-Correction switch does not control it. Apple’s developer documentation says a custom keyboard does not have access to most of the general keyboard settings in Settings › General › Keyboard, and is expected to provide its own.

  • Gboard: Google’s help pages for iPhone put its options in the Gboard app, under Keyboard settings.
  • Microsoft SwiftKey: Microsoft’s iPhone instructions start from the SwiftKey app and its Settings.

One exception: in password fields, iOS temporarily swaps any third-party keyboard for its own, so it is Apple’s keyboard you are typing on there.

More than on or off: how Pilcrow handles it

Pilcrow, the keyboard we make, was built for people who reached for this switch. Its corrections live in the Pilcrow app under Settings › Corrections & learning, and between on and off there are several steps:

  • A strength, not just a switch. Gentle only fixes what it is sure of; Strong corrects more. At every setting, a word that exists in one of your languages is never rewritten, and neither is a name from your contacts.
  • Off for one language, on for the others. With several languages enabled, you can stop corrections in one of them. It stays spell-checked, with suggestions in the bar, but nothing is changed.
  • Leave words I type slowly. When you slow down to spell a word out, it stays as you typed it, with the correction offered in the bar instead.
  • One undo is enough. Backspace straight after a correction puts your word back, and that correction is never made on that word again.
  • It respects the app. Where an app has switched autocorrection off for a field, Pilcrow may still show suggestions, but nothing is applied by itself. It does not correct in fields an app has set up for web addresses or e-mail.
  • Don’t learn here. Tap the mascot in the suggestion bar, then the crossed-out eye, and nothing typed in that field is kept. Password, one-time-code and card fields teach it nothing whatever the switches say.

Measured on held-out text, Pilcrow changes a correctly spelled word fewer than 7 times in 1,000, while restoring 61–72 % of words typed with a genuine slip, both quoted at the worst end of the range across its languages. That pairing is the point: corrections you rarely need to undo are corrections you do not need to switch off.

Last checked October 2026 against Apple’s iPhone User Guide for iOS 27, Apple’s developer documentation, Google’s Gboard Help pages for iPhone and Microsoft’s SwiftKey support pages. All product names are trademarks of their owners; Pilcrow is not affiliated with any of them. If anything here is out of date, write to info@pilcrowtype.com.

Sources

  1. Apple, How to use Auto-Correction and predictive text on your iPhone (turning Auto-Correction off; on by default)
  2. Apple, Type with the onscreen keyboard on iPhone (keyboard settings below All Keyboards; shortcut from the keyboard)
  3. Apple, Select, edit, and move text on iPhone (Check Spelling and Grammar; undoing an autocorrection)
  4. Apple, Use predictive text on iPhone (corrections with Predictive Text off; rejecting a suggestion)
  5. Apple, Reset iPhone settings to their defaults (rejected words are added to the keyboard dictionary)
  6. Apple, Set up shorthand for frequently used text on iPhone (Text Replacement with an empty shortcut)
  7. Apple Developer, autocorrectionType (the per-field setting apps control)
  8. Apple Developer, Custom Keyboard (custom keyboards and the system keyboard settings; password fields)
  9. Google, Slide your finger to type – iPhone & iPad (Gboard’s Keyboard settings)
  10. Microsoft, What is Flow and how do I enable it with Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard? (SwiftKey’s settings on iOS)

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