I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.

Matthew & braintoniq, did you have the 2013 file and remove it? That's where my zombies were hiding and the file is not located with the other two folders. I also only had two folders after the fix and they came back until I removed the 2013 file. Mine have never returned since early June when I deleted that file.

Cce525, you may be on to something logical here: signing out of everything from Original Zombied Apple ID, creating a New Apple ID, and then going back to the Original.

I didn't quite follow your steps, though. Can you explain in more details what you did? In particular:

1. when you say you changed the email on your Original Zombied Apple ID, how and where did you do that? I thought the name@icloud.com email was permanently assigned to each ID.

2. when you say you deleted the backups from the Original Zombied Apple ID, how and where did you do that. What backups are you referring to. Did you sign into the iCloud.com browser account to do this?

Thank you for any further clarity you can add to your steps. I really thing you may have the best solution so far, and I'm wanting to try it myself.

Pickinic, thanks for checking.

Yes, I deleted not only that 2013 file, but EVERYTHING in that KeyboardDomain file (for right or wrong). In fact, in the iBackupBot app, there were (and still are, just checked again) two folders called KeyboardDomain (both now completely empty). Still, all zombies came back to all 4 devices within a day.

I'm onto a new tack, trying out something that poster "Cce525" got me thinking about, and that's creating a second text Apple ID, then deleting the Original Zombied Apple ID account from all devices (I've got 4 that have been filling up with these Text Replacement Zombies: MacPro tower, MacBook Air, iPad, and 5s iPhone), going back and zapping the Original Apple ID from the iCloud.com angle, and then trying to come in with one device at a time. It's taking hours, and I'm already seeing weird behavior, but I'll report back once with good or other news.

No zombies now on 3 weeks, however sync has not returned even with 9.0 across my devices.

II've not put any further effort into this, suffering through the ***** of being all Apple products in a far away land with intermittent & variable wifi/internet/cellular connection. It pretty much *****... and I'm not finding very many redeeming qualities coming from the Apple platform. iPhone 5 can barely find a wifi signal under its antenna (Apple's planned obsolesence with new updates?) Safari on a MacBook is less responsive than the iPad (is it an App or a program?) and not have the text replacements/keyboard shortcuts has really killed my ability to promote/market my business (was using them for 30+ urls as knowledge bases).

Learning curve aside, having the Apple trifecta has proven an exercise in frustrating lack of productivity, continuously manually reconnecting, waiting & retrying for a command (click) to execute or sit in limbo indefinitely. I had to break out a 6 year old ASUS Netbook I 'luckily' brought with me to get something done today.

Was (FFS on this forum on my iPhone no spell check & it capitalizes the first 2 letters of the first word in a sentence???) Notes upgraded in 9.0.... sync works there? I'm glad 9.0 brought with it a 'Selfies' folder in Photos... Such an important add-on!

Glad you got going, am certain that the cloud backups would have brought them back eventually had you not deleted them too. I followed all the steps and then when I got a new phone, they all came back without even hooking up to my laptop.

ha. That's a fascinating twist to the puzzle, Cce525, and I think proof that the iCloud's backups are part of the issue.

I don't believe there's any direct way to delete hidden backup files on the iCloud.com account.

So I think one of the keys is to make sure all devices syncing with the iCloud account be deactivated. Then, on one device (preferably ones main computer), set up the Text Replacements as you want. Perhaps this alone will help reset the iCloud's backup to the correct set of Text Replacements.

Then, run through Pickinic's steps.

What OS X are you operating on? I think I'm one behind the most recent.

Both iOS are in the 9.0.x range & it sync has never returned.

No zombies still.

What is the app in OS X or is it via System Preferences? (New to OS X)

I have an iPad and iPhone 6s+ on iOS 9.0.2....BUT I noticed this morning when I woke up (it's 430 here in Hawaii) that it's actually working now. All sync'd between the two. I just remember every time I upgrade, I need to delete all the keyboard files. I think the solution should be updated to delete REGARDLESS of how many folders. Because some might see the solution and see they only have two folders so they don't do anything...my original issue I had four or five folders, but now when the issue comes back, it's a) usually after a major upgrade only, and b) with only two folders.

I have found a solution that works for me and its way easier then all the complicated suggestions other users are mentioning where you need to do a bunch of backing up and snooping around in the files. For many people with limited computer knowledge, those steps are not easy. I have been irritated with this keyboard shortcut problem and I tried something that seems to have cured my problem. All I did was make a simple edit to each shortcut.

All you need to do is go into your keyboard shortcuts. Choose a shortcut that you no longer want. Lets say that you had a shortcut "Cookie" that was replaced by a cookie emoji (phrase). When you choose the shortcut you want to change, you will have 2 fields that can be edited. The fields are Phrase and Shortcut. Under shortcut where you had the work "cookie" you would add a few characters to the end of the word, ensuring you leave no spaces. For example, "cookie" should now be "cookieeeee" or any other combo of characters. By adding the extra characters, it will not replace your word cookie unless you severely misspell it. So, deleting them won't work as they continue to come back BUT if you edit them it appears to stick and prevents unwanted shortcuts!

AAgreed Mathew. The last time I saw syncing work was while I was editing them & it was overwriting the 'cache' in those corrupted folders, until I did it enough that the deletes were overwriting those cached shortcuts into no more zombies.

with tests unique to the 3 devices they were created in to see if any pushed to another device or MCP, nodda after 3 weeks of numerous backups, updates, plugged to a power source, synced via wifi.

ive not looked into folders further to see what populates the backup files now, but I'm not having to get rid of zombies.

WWaa that *****!

i Did notice today that syncing worked almost instantly as I was at a cafe & connecting to their wifi. I added the password on one device & by the time I switched to the second device, waala it had synced over already! Go figure???

Well, it looks like it is VERY slowly synching again. The zombies I deleted have remained gone again after multiple reboots.

Picnic, what is interesting is they come flooding back with the El Capitan install which makes me believe they must be hidden in more places then just the iPhone backup…..

I'm glad you got that figured out! I also deleted more than I needed to and took extra steps as well just to make sure I got everything. Early on in this string Chris mentioned making sure you're logged out of iCloud on ALL devices or you may get a continuous loop of re-infection. I'm glad to hear everything is working now. The syncing issue takes a long time to resolve itself, but it eventually does.

Yes, I think there's definitely an iCloud connection where the zombies were stored in some other old file. I had logged out of iCloud on all of my devices including my Mac when I did the procedure and that may have kept them from reappearing on my Mac. I haven't had any zombies on any of my devices or my Mac even after installing El Capitan.

I have been reading this for what seems like hours and I had to create an account so I could chime in with a new present I just discovered. I too have been unwilling to try to fix a problem Apple should be fixing. Months ago my teen made some hilarious substitutions to my keyboard. Luckily none that are obscene, and compared to people here mine are trivial. My favorite is "to" becomes "tooty". Sort of funny. Also, sometimes I try to create new shortcuts and days or weeks later they just disappear. I have the original iPad, a 4s used at home for music, and a 6. Thanks to the cloud it went to all devices. I periodically just go in and delete the zombies, there are just a few so no big deal, compared to problems others are having. You all have my sympathies. Anyway, I have not done the latest update. The zombies came back a few days ago so I decided to research again and read all 40 pages here today in search of a more permanent solution. Just for the heck of it I figured I would just try deleting them again on all devices. None of them were there! Fantastic! But if I type an email and enter "too" I get "tooty". It shows up in the predictive keyboard. Seriously. Now I have to try to figure out how to override that, because it has apparently learned it from unintended repeat use. And I paid for this.