Autocorrect on Your Phone: How to Turn It Off and Still Send Clean Messages

Autocorrect, spell check and proofreading: three different features

In your keyboard settings, fixing mistakes is the job of three separate features:

• Autocorrect swaps a word while you type. On the Samsung keyboard it's called "Auto replace".
• Spell check underlines a word that looks wrong. The word stays as it is until you pick a fix yourself.
• Proofreading reads the finished message as a whole and fixes the words, the grammar and the punctuation together.

How to turn off autocorrect and keep word suggestions

To stop words from changing behind your back, turn off autocorrect in your keyboard's settings. Want it back, turn it on in the same place.

Word suggestions, also called predictive text, live in the strip above the keys: the keyboard offers words and you decide whether to tap them. Underlines live in the message itself and mark words that look wrong. Each has its own switch, so autocorrect can go while suggestions stay.

Gboard

Touch and hold the comma, slide to the gear, then open "Text correction".

Turn "Auto-correction" off or on. "Spell check" controls the underlines, and "Show suggestion strip" keeps the suggestions above the keys.

Samsung keyboard

Tap the gear on the keyboard toolbar, or open "Settings" and search for "Samsung Keyboard".

"Auto replace" turns word swapping off or on. "Predictive text" keeps the suggestions above the keys, and "Suggest text corrections" adds green underlines for grammar.

iPhone

Open "Settings", "General", "Keyboard". Turn "Auto-Correction" off or on. Underlines have their own switch, "Check Spelling", and suggestions above the keys have "Predictive Text".

How to stop autocorrect from changing words you meant

If the keyboard keeps rewriting a coworker's last name or the name of your street, save the spelling you want:

• Gboard: tap the underlined word and choose "Add to dictionary".
• Samsung: in the keyboard settings, open "Text shortcuts" and tap "+".
• iPhone: open "Settings", "General", "Keyboard", "Text Replacement" and tap "+". Type the word under "Phrase", leave "Shortcut" empty and save.

When autocorrect has picked up bad habits and swaps correct words all over the place, wipe what it learned:

• Gboard: to drop a single word, touch and hold it in the suggestion strip and drag it to the trash. To start over, open the keyboard settings, "Privacy", "Delete learned words and data".
• Samsung: keyboard settings, "Reset to default settings", "Erase personalized predictions".
• iPhone: "Settings", "General", "Transfer or Reset iPhone", "Reset", "Reset Keyboard Dictionary".

How do you fix spelling and punctuation in a message you already typed?

A finished message can be fixed one underlined word at a time, or all at once, punctuation included. The all-at-once fix is part of your keyboard on the newest phones.

Gboard

Tap an underlined word and pick the right one. Repeat for the rest. On a Pixel 9 or newer, and on a handful of other recent flagships, Gboard has writing tools: tap their button above the keyboard, then "Proofread", and the whole message gets its spelling and grammar fixed.

Samsung keyboard

On Galaxy phones with Galaxy AI, from the S22 series up and the foldables, the whole message can be fixed:

1. Type your message.
2. Tap the Writing assist icon, the three stars on the keyboard toolbar.
3. Tap "Spelling and grammar".
4. Apply the fix.

Galaxy A phones don't have Writing assist; there you fix the underlined words one by one.

iPhone

Tap an underlined word and choose the fix. That's how you go through the mistakes in a message you've typed.

On iPhone 15 Pro and newer, Apple Intelligence adds Writing Tools: select the text, tap the Writing Tools button and choose "Proofread".

Why autocorrect changes words you spelled right and skips the commas

Autocorrect is set the way you like, your words are saved. And still you reread every message before sending: did it swap a word, is there a comma missing?

Autocorrect guesses one word at a time, without reading the sentence around it. A Gboard review on Google Play describes the result: "It had changed 'five' into 'give' and 'crass' into 'crazy'." Both words were spelled correctly. To leave the right one alone, a keyboard has to understand what you're writing about.

Switching it off doesn't always end it. Another Gboard review: "i have disabled auto correct yet the keyboard corrects my words whenever it feels like it."

And commas need someone who sees how the parts of a sentence fit together. Autocorrect never looks that far.

Here's a message where fixing the words is only half the job:

Fixing "contarct" and "ill" is only the start. The name needs a capital, the request needs a question mark, and the whole thing needs to become two sentences.

That's exactly the job of the third feature, fixing the whole message. In the keyboard you already have, it depends on how new your phone is.

How to fix a whole message in one go, on any phone

With Aqua Voice you select the message, tap "Edit" and say what you want: "fix the spelling and punctuation". The text is rewritten right where it is. Want just one sentence fixed? Select only that. It works on any iPhone with iOS 17 or later and any phone with Android 10 or newer, not just the newest flagships.

Worried it'll change more than you want? Say so in the same breath: "keep my wording, just fix the mistakes". Aqua follows plain instructions like that.

The same button fixes the tone. A message typed in a hurry can sound like an order:

Ask for any change you'd ask a friend who writes well: "make it shorter" trims a rambling text to two lines, "make this a list" turns a string of errands into bullet points.

And when typing is the slow part, skip it: say the message the way you'd say it out loud. Periods, commas and capitals go in by themselves, without you saying "comma", and the "um"s drop out. Accuracy is what people notice first when they switch; one App Store review puts it simply: "works much, much better than the native voice-to-text on my iPhone."

The names autocorrect keeps mangling go into Aqua's dictionary once, and from then on they come out your way.

On Android, Aqua is a small button next to the keyboard you already use, so Gboard or the Samsung keyboard keeps its autocorrect and suggestions exactly as you set them above, and Aqua adds the whole-message fix on top. On iPhone, it's a keyboard of its own that you switch to with the globe key: type in Apple's keyboard as usual, then switch to Aqua to fix the message by voice.

How to fix messages by voice on iPhone

Aqua Voice goes on your iPhone as a keyboard of its own, next to Apple's: switch to it to fix a message or to say a new one, and back to Apple's to type.

1. Install Aqua Voice from the App Store and open it.
2. Follow its prompt to "Settings": turn on the Aqua keyboard and "Allow Full Access", then allow the microphone.
3. Select the message you want fixed, tap the globe key to switch to Aqua, tap "Edit" and say what to change. When it needs to start the microphone, Aqua opens its app for a moment; come back to your message and keep going.

How to add whole-message fixes next to your Android keyboard

On Android, Aqua Voice doesn't replace your keyboard: Gboard or the Samsung keyboard stays as it is, with your suggestions, your dictionary and your autocorrect settings, and a small Aqua button appears beside it. You need Android 10 or newer.

1. Install Aqua Voice from Google Play and open it.
2. Sign in and allow the microphone.
3. Turn on Aqua in the accessibility settings the app opens for you: that's how it reads the text you select and puts the fixed version back.
4. Select the message, tap "Edit" on the Aqua button and say what to change.

How do you write without typos on a computer?

On a Mac or Windows PC, Wispr Flow takes the typing out of it: hold one key, say what you want to write, and clean text with commas and periods lands in whatever window you're in, from email to Slack to a doc. Nothing gets typed, so there are no typos to fix.