How to Fix Predictive Text Mistakes

Texting is a fantastic way to keep in touch without having to make a phone call.  And the predictive text on your iPhone makes sending a text even easier.

Its ability to know what you want to say before you do is quite amazing. Predictive text works by learning how you text, what words you use most often, and giving you the top three options. 

Predictive text is based on you and not a dictionary so how you spell affects the results. It learns the names and acronyms and other words that we often use but it also can include words we misspell the most. And if those words keep coming up as options and keep getting chosen the cycle continues.

At this time, we cannot delete individual words from the Apple Keyboard app. One way to overcome the typos is to not choose the misspelled word and simply type it correctly. As it is a learning feature the misspellings will disappear over time.

You can speed up this process a bit by nudging the text to the right spelling. Here’s how.

Step 1. Open an app that allows you to freely type. I’m going to be using Notes in this example.

Step 2. Intentionally misspell the word you want to correct. 

Step 3. Lightly tap on the word with the red dots. Then a black box with the dictionary spelling will appear (you may need to backspace to the end of the word). Choose the corrected spelling suggestion.

Doing this will help the predictive text learn that you don’t like the other spelling and it will start to give you the correct option to choose from.

If you want to clear the whole predictive text history and start fresh, you can do that too. This method will give you a fresh start and the system will need to relearn your favorite words all over again. Maybe not such a bad thing but it will take a little time to get up to full predictive speed. 

Step 1. In Settings choose General.

Step 2. Scroll down to Reset.

Step 3. From the next menu choose Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

Step 4. Enter your password and confirm Reset.

This action will wipe the slate clean, and you can start a whole new predictive text life. But you’ll still need to keep an eye out to make sure consistent typos don’t get back into the rotation again.

There is an option outside of Apple that you may want to consider as well. You could get a different Keyboard app that would allow you to remove selected words whenever you want. Many come with extra features that you may find improve your texting experience. You can only use one Keyboard app at a time so you will not be able to switch between a Keyboard app and the Apple Keyboard.

Personally, I ignore the suggestions that aren’t correct and enter the text as I want it to be to improve the predictive text for my use. It learns quickly what you like and what you don’t. It is great if you use a lot of acronyms or abbreviations too. Or if you prefer to use spelling variations like gray versus grey. 

Just keep feeding it what you like and predictive text will keep getting better and better. It’s what it’s made to do.

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