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Turn off Spell Checking permanently

I would like to turn off spell checking permanently. The red underlines disturbs me extremely much.

In Mail my setting for this seems to be accepted, but for other applications (eg Stickies and Text Editor), it turns back to default as soon as I restart the app. This is very annoying, and also very unlogical.

Is there a solution?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Sep 11, 2010 12:49 PM

Best reply

octothorpe

Level 1

29 points

Posted on Aug 11, 2012 3:20 PM

Here's a method which I think seems to work system-wide and kills red underlining, overriding the way many apps annoyingly default back to "Check Spelling While Typing".

1. Open "Language & Text" in System Preferences

2. Under the "Text" tab, select Spelling... (which is probably set to "Automatic" by default), and scroll down to the bottom where it says Set Up...

3. in the box that comes up, uncheck every language. It seems to require that at least ONE remain checked, though, so I just left "Polski" (Polish?) checked. I don't think it matters at all which one you leave check as long as the English ones are unchecked? Anyway, I left Polish checked and this all is working great.

4. Click Done to apply the settings, and that main Text tab, leave Spelling set to "Automatic by language"

Once you do this, from what I can tell you can type anywhere in any app, even with Check Spelling While Typing set to on, and the red underlines won't appear. This is working for me, anyhow. I can type some gibberish like "lkjsfdkljhf" and it will not be underlined. If I go back in and check those language boxes again, type the same gibberish, it will come up underlined in the same app.

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29 replies

dm10003

Level 1

9 points

Jan 21, 2015 2:58 PM in response to octothorpe

OSX Yosemite settings for spelling are in keyboard.

I unchecked English and the underlines went away.

It will be interesting to see how other programs behave now.

If I don't want to keep it I'll recheck English.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Jan 21, 2015 7:00 PM in response to dm10003

dm10003 wrote:

OSX Yosemite settings for spelling are in keyboard.

And for questions regarding that OS version, best post in its own forum

OS X Yosemite

(This one is for the OS X of 5 years ago)

Mar 21, 2015 9:31 AM in response to baltwo

There are global settings as youll see in this link http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/turn-autocorrect-osx-mac-mail-skype-10-9-mav ericks/

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Mar 21, 2015 10:22 AM in response to metalgod2015

You are responding to a 5 year old message which relates to the old OS X Snow Leopard. If you want to post something about Mavericks, you should go to

OS X Mavericks

xray

Level 1

0 points

Aug 9, 2015 2:47 PM in response to CT

I didn't realize that you could uncheck this by selecting it when it was checked. finally. thanks! 🙂

Oct 3, 2015 8:18 AM in response to sig

No offence (well, ok, I'm going to offend you), but you'd have to be utterly stupid to offer such an answer. What if you happen to write in two languages, for instance? Your native language and English, for instance? And so on, and so forth.

Level 7

23,987 points

Oct 3, 2015 8:27 AM in response to lethargos

Learn to spell.

Oct 3, 2015 11:32 AM in response to CT

Would you mind if I'd offer you an equally random reply to that? Such as, you're stupid? I hope you won't. And I really hope you're not as idiotic as to think that "offence" is actually spelled wrongly 😀

jryi

Level 1

0 points

Jan 6, 2016 2:46 PM in response to Andreas Carlsson

I understand that Apple fans are totally uncritical in their admiration of everything Apple, but this yet another ridiculous limitation in the otherwise best OS. I know how to spell, I am actually quite skilled at using my native language, and I know how to bend and break the rules to achieve an impact. The spell checker of OSX, not so much.

Why the **** can't there just be an option to turn off the **** spell checker? I don't need it!

Verme005

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2016 2:23 PM in response to jryi

But there is a solution: http://www.chromescreen.com/disable-spell-checker-in-mac-osx-system-wide/ Essentially you rename the spell check program so OS-X can no longer find it. It worked really well for me (in Mavericks).

Jan 31, 2016 12:21 AM in response to Verme005

Verme005 wrote:

But there is a solution: http://www.chromescreen.com/disable-spell-checker-in-mac-osx-system-wide/ Essentially you rename the spell check program so OS-X can no longer find it. It worked really well for me (in Mavericks).

I took a look at the fine article @Verme005 mentioned, but unfortunately I am no longer on 10.6.x. In 10.11.x the AppleSpell no longer seems to contain the spelling resources folder.

~ ❯❯❯ stat /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Resources

stat: /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Resources: stat: No such file or directory

~ ❯❯❯ ls /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/

Info.plist MacOS PkgInfo _CodeSignature version.plist

On another note I only would like to disable Finnish spelling as it is really not working.

I have considered writing an idiomatic spelling library called Finnish2 that for any word would say it is correct. This Finnish2 I would then select as my default and then I would no longer have any misspelled words. If selecting a spelling language is globally possible either.

Unfortunately I do not know how to write a programmatic spell checking library.

-Pete

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Jan 31, 2016 5:42 AM in response to PetriSirk

PetriSirk wrote:

I am no longer on 10.6.x. In 10.11.x the AppleSpell no longer seems to contain the spelling resources folder.

You might want to repost your question in the right forum for your OS as well.

OS X El Capitan

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,952 points

Jan 31, 2016 7:36 AM in response to PetriSirk

PetriSirk wrote:

I only would like to disable Finnish spelling as it is really not working.

You should be able to do that by just going to system preferences/keyboard/text/spelling and going to setup at the bottom of the list and then unchecking the box for Finnish.

Sep 24, 2016 6:22 AM in response to CT

CT, you're a terrible excuse for a human being and a blight on this community.

Turn off Spell Checking permanently