How to Delete Words from Your iPhone Keyboard’s Learned Vocabulary

Your iPhone’s keyboard is pretty smart. It learns from your typing habits to suggest words and phrases as you go, making typing faster and more convenient. However, sometimes this learning can lead to unwanted suggestions, especially if you’ve accidentally typed something incorrectly or used a word you’d rather not see pop up again. Luckily, you can easily delete these learned words from your iPhone’s keyboard vocabulary. This article will guide you through the process step-by-step.

Why Delete Learned Words?

There are several reasons why you might want to delete words from your iPhone’s learned vocabulary:

• Typing Errors: If you’ve frequently typed a misspelled word, the keyboard might start suggesting it as a correction.
• Unwanted Suggestions: You might have used a slang word or a phrase you don’t want your keyboard to remember and suggest.
• Privacy Concerns: You might not want certain words or names stored in your keyboard’s history.
• Keeping it Clean: You might just prefer to keep your suggestions clean and relevant.

How to Delete Learned Words: Two Methods

There are primarily two methods to delete learned words from your iPhone keyboard. We’ll cover both:

Method 1: Resetting the Keyboard Dictionary

This is the easiest and quickest way to delete *all* learned words from your keyboard’s vocabulary. It’s a nuclear option, meaning you’ll lose all your custom corrections and shortcuts, but it gets the job done effectively.

1. Open the Settings app. Find the grey gear icon on your home screen and tap it.
2. Go to General. Scroll down and tap on the ‘General’ option.
3. Tap on Transfer or Reset iPhone. At the bottom of the screen, locate and tap this option.
4. Tap Reset. On the next screen, you will see a list of reset options. Tap on ‘Reset’
5. Choose Reset Keyboard Dictionary. From the list of reset options, tap ‘Reset Keyboard Dictionary’.
6. Confirm the Reset. You may be prompted to enter your passcode for confirmation. Tap ‘Reset Dictionary’ to confirm that you want to erase all stored learned words.

That’s it! Your keyboard’s learned vocabulary is now cleared. This means you’ll need to re-teach it new words and phrases over time.

Method 2: Deleting Words One by One (Indirectly)

Unfortunately, Apple does not provide a direct way to remove specific words one at a time. However, there’s an indirect method that, with some effort, can help ‘unlearn’ specific words:

1. Start Typing the Problem Word: Open any app where you can type (like Messages, Notes, or email). Begin typing the word you want to remove.
2. Ignore the Suggested Word: When the unwanted word appears in the predictive text bar above your keyboard, do not tap it. Continue to type the *correct* word instead.
3. Repeat the Correct Typing: Keep typing the correct word multiple times, ignoring the suggested incorrect word each time.
4. Persistence is Key: You’ll likely need to do this several times (the number of times varies) for the keyboard to realize it should no longer suggest the problematic word. The keyboard learns from repeated actions, so consistently using the correct spelling should eventually make the unwanted suggestion disappear.

This method is less straightforward, but it’s helpful if you need to remove only a few specific words without deleting your entire keyboard dictionary.

Tips for Managing Your Keyboard Vocabulary

• Be Careful While Typing: Try your best to avoid spelling mistakes repeatedly to prevent unwanted words from being learned.
• Use Text Replacement: If there’s a specific word or phrase you misspell often, use the Text Replacement feature (Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement) to create a shortcut that always types the correct version.
• Regularly Check: If you notice unwanted words appearing, use one of the methods above to clean up your keyboard dictionary periodically.

Conclusion

While the iPhone keyboard’s learning ability is a great feature, it can sometimes lead to unwanted or incorrect suggestions. Whether you choose to reset your entire keyboard dictionary or try to ‘unlearn’ specific words, you have the tools to keep your typing experience clean and efficient. By following these steps, you can easily manage your keyboard’s vocabulary and ensure it’s working for you, not against you.