I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts. They keep restoring.

I originally came across this thread last year, but none of the solutions worked for me. Now here we are one year later and I'm still going crazy with the stupid zombie shortcuts. I'm tired of deleting them on three different devices multiple times a week. These problems started showing up for me in iOS 7, I believe. I also have problems with spelling corrections that are mental. For instance, my iPhone and iPad get extremely confused with apostrophes. The most bizarre replacements are being made after the apostrophes. I'm on my iPad now, so I don't dare type them for you for fear of giving them user reinforcement. I imagine it's related to the same Dictionary problem. I just skimmed through 40 pages of forum posts. Is the solution still on page 17 and 18? Or now with El Capitan, has the game changed? What do I need to do to get rid of these blasted shortcuts? I don't want to waste your time, but I don't want to waste mine either. What is the most recent, proven solution? Thanks a ton.

I used the solution on page 17 along with Pickinic's addendum with the .sqlite file (page 32?). I followed the instructions without taking any shortcuts (zombie or otherwise...right, Pickinic?!) and have been zombie shortcut free for over a month now.

Syncing of shortcuts between my MacBook and iPhone were not as simple, and seemed to be working fine after installing El Capitan, but then suddenly all shortcuts on the MacBook disappeared. I did the latest update and now they're all back. But, no zombies!

My iPhone has been six hours free so far. I'll need to give it a few days before being certain, but I've been able to start a sentence with "I've" for the first time in forever without weirdness after the apostrophe. Also, I've successfully deleted and added some shortcuts. Again, I'll have to wait a few days to be certain, but so far I am pleased. Thank you. Now cleaning up my iPad

Hello Kaycee,

Is El Cap the upgrade sitting on my MCP from Yosemite 10.10.3? I'm Mac OS stupid... and I'm scared to upgrade my MCP being here in Africa. It is the only piece of my puzzle not upgraded yet, both iPhone & iPad Air2 are in iOS 9.0.x ranges.

When i got the MCP a month ago, it was completely fresh and new with the 10.10.3... I doubt this will bring back syncing, but willing to try...

Does the name change in Yosemite as well... from "Keyborad Shortcuts" to "Text Replacements"?

Almost 24 hours later and I'm still zombie free. My iPad is also working perfectly. I've had no syncing issues. All shortcuts are the same across my three devices. Deletions and additions also sync. I've usually seen zombie shortcuts appear by now after deleting them, so this is very, very promising.

I'm honestly not that Mac savvy - I don't even know what you mean by MCP! I haven't had any issues with El Cap. I don't think the term keyboard shortcuts was used to refer to text replacements in Yosemite, though. That looks the same to me. It's under settings, keyboard, then "text" - and the list there says "replace with" - pretty sure that's how it was in Yosemite as well.

My replacements are still syncing and not a single zombie in sight!

I followed the steps in this thread but unfortunately my shortcuts are back after 24 hours.

The only thing I can think of is I have gone wrong somewhere when trying to get rid of them.

I will try again, (forth time lucky maybe) tomorrow.

While I remain zombie free and iOS - iOS synching works ok. iOS 9 - OS X El Capitan is broken. Nothing syncs.

Over 12 months and despite all of Apple’s promises this still doesn’t work.

I’m guessing it never will.

Please re-read my post as I mention two different programs that will allow you to delete files:

iBackUpBot/iCopyBot (I know nothing about these programs; they were mentioned in earlier posts as being able to read iPhone backups)

iMazing: https://imazing.com/store

To reiterate, you should be deleting these files from the backup, not from the existing content on the device, and then restoring the phone from the revised backup. DO NOT delete files from the device itself. Delete the named files/folders ONLY from the backup, after backing it up to iTunes, using one of these applications. Then use the restore process from either of these applications or directly from iTunes to restore the phone with the revised backup from which you have deleted the necessary files.

So does iCloud need to be turned off for this to work? I've tried the steps twice and the zombie shortcuts have returned both times. steps I took:

1. Backed up phone with itunes

2. Removed the listed files

3. Restored on iTunes

4. Deleted the shortcuts I wanted gone

A couple things.

1. Delete everything inside the keyboard folder. Ignore looking for subfolders or specific files. Just click on the keyboard folder...everything in there on the right highlight and delete.

2. Make sure you don't have auto sync turned on in iTunes. Because if you do, you'll complete steps 1 & 2, plug in your phone, and it will re-sync everything which negates steps 1/2.

I found this and am trying it out.

Could this also work for old contacts appearing in the new message window? For instance, if I delete a contact I could type the contacts name in the text message window and the number would show up. Ordinarily not an issue, but sometimes there is someone that you just have to cut out of your life… sad, but it is for the best. if there is help on this too that'd be great.

All,

It appears that the most recent update to El Capitan has resolved this problem. During the past week all of the shortcuts on my Mac completely disappeared. I ultimately decided to purchase TextExpander just as a workaround. No sooner did I get that installed and setup that all of the correct shortcuts appeared in the Keyboard Text tab.

Any shortcuts that I create on one device - iOS or OS X - appear on all of the others and any that I delete on any device disappears from the others. No rogue shortcuts are appearing anywhere.

I am hopeful that this is the final resolution to this issue and will keep you posted if this changes.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in coming up with a solution.

aaaaannndd… they're back.

It occurred to me that this must have something to do with caches or permissions so this morning I ran Onyx (great all-around maintenance tool) using the "Automation" tab. All checkboxes except "System Cache" were preselected by default; I also selected the "System Cache" checkbox and let it run. Even on my SSD it took several minutes to run through all of the maintenance scripts, clean the caches, etc., but when it was done I restarted and, like magic, the text shortcuts in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences are back.

They're intact and identical to the ones on my iOS devices so this must be something to do with what was cleared out.

Note that in El Capitan (for which you'll need the latest version of Onyx) users normally cannot "Repair Permissions" as we used to be able to in earlier versions. There is a hidden Terminal command to do this and Onyx must be invoking it in order to have that capability in its GUI.

For now, all is in sync. I'll report back if that changes.

I just spoke with an AppleCare rep about a different issue, and because we were waiting I explained about this zombie shortcuts issue, but while I was showing him (we were screen sharing), I discovered that all the shortcuts that I had tried to delete in the past are now gone. I'm too skeptical to open the champagne right now, but I think that Apple might have finally (quietly) fixed the problem. Yay! 18 months later... no zombie shortcuts.

If you didn't use a third-party solution for the zombie shortcuts AND you have the latest iOS AND you still have zombie shortcuts, please let us know here!