Q: I cannot delete iPhone keyboard shortcuts.  They keep restoring.

I ended up restoring my iPhone as new. That did the trick. It wiped all shortcuts and I was able to start fresh. Restoring as new is not fun. But I'm no longer bothered by unwanted shortcuts.

I had restored from old backups and that did not fix the problem. Perhaps restoring and setting up the iPhone as a new device does work. Unfortunately, that's been a deal-breaker option for me in the past and continues to be so… just too much information to restore for me to go through with the "nuclear option."

One correction to my post: the *.cdt files don't appear in the com~apple~TextInput/ directory, they show up in a subdirectory to which com~apple~TextInput/ is the parent. Everything else in my post remains accurate and effective.

Still totally broken for me.

I have an iMac, MB Air, iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6 all running the latest software and it’s impossible to keep the keyboard shortcuts in sync.

Either deleted items keep re-appearing, or the same items duplicate again and again or items don’t sync at all.

Totally broken since iOS8

GAH!!!!

I don't know how but the zombie iOS keyboard shortcuts came back to life on my iPhone sometime in the last 24 hours. They are not present on any of my computers or other iOS devices, just the blasted phone.

I am so sick and tired of this. Does anyone else have some idea how to close off this unknown entry point for the infection? Perhaps there are additional crumbs of information in the iCloud data storage?

P.S.: None of my devices are using iCloud Drive yet, they are all still using the older iCloud data storage method. iOS 8.1.3 and Mavericks.

If you are still using Mavericks then simply:

1. In Finder navigate to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~TextInput and remove the “Dictionaries” directory
2. Empty Trash
3. Restart your iPhone and then delete unwanted shortcuts from iPhone Settings/General/Keyboard/Shourtcuts

Let me know if it worked.

The above may be a good solution. A friend with the same problem had this solution posted elsewhere.

"1. Deleted the 3 folders found in var/mobile/Library/Keyboard/CorsDataUbiquitySupport.

There was only one folder there. Which may be part of why they keep coming back.

2. I also backed up and deleted the dynamic-text.dat and LocalDictionary files at the bottom of var/mobile/Library/Keyboard.

After a reboot only the dynamic-text.dat file recreated itself so far. The LocalDictionary did not because I reset the Keyboard Dictionary for good measure. So far so good.

Update: Deleting those files has apparently worked!"

I hope everyone gets this problem fixed. Regardless of the solution used. ☮

???

Is this for a jailbroken phone?

var/mobile ???

I Think his is jailbroken. But I saw this somewhere else too. Here at this site:

http://www.sinfuliphone.com/showthread.php?p=975313

Jailbroken for sure. So, basically useless for most people's situation. Also, since this isn't your own phone, this is (at best) anecdotal and unconfirmed.

Call it what you want. I was just passing along info posted on another forum. It might be helpful to someone. I guess not you. Restoring as new cured many ills on my phone. So I'm happy!

Update on shortcut issues... the only solution that is reportedly working is detailed below. This has been used to fix both the reappearing shortcuts issue and/or the keyboard shortcuts crash on iOS.

(1) On any affected iOS device go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Content And Settings

(WARNING this will obviously delete everything so you must be willing to go this far with no guarantee)

(2) If you also have a Mac(s) proceed to step (3) otherwise skip to step (6)

(3) On Mac, go to System Preferences > Keyboard >Text Tab and delete ALL the shortcuts you have there.

(4) Using Terminal app on your Mac, the following command will place a “Real iCloud Drive" folder on your desktop which will allow you to see ALL the hidden items in iCloud Drive:

ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ ~/Desktop/Real\ iCloud\ Drive

(5) Open this new iCloud Folder alias (you must choose to view it in a Finder window as list view).  Inside this folder is the folder called "Settings" and inside that, "Dictionaries.” Delete the “Dictionaries” folder and empty trash.

(6) Set up your iOS device(s) as NEW. Meaning, you must manually reinstall any apps, settings, etc. Do NOT restore from iTunes or iCloud backup as that will just leave you with the same corrupted issue. Before going through all the time that takes, start with singing into your device with your Apple/iCloud ID and see if the shortcuts issue seem to be fixed and when you enter new ones they sync between devices and/or Mac.

- This solution was suggested to me by a developer and it seems to have worked for my iOS shortcuts crashing & syncing debacle. The issues have not reappeared for the last week and all the shortcuts are properly syncing between an iPhone, iPad and 2 Macs. Please don’t get angry with me if you try this and it doesn’t work for you. I’m just sharing an option.

- I continue to submit feedback to Apple about the issue and have still been having followup calls with AppleCare. They just keep saying “a fix will be in an upcoming iOS software update.” They’ve been saying that to me me since iOS 8.0 and we are now at 8.1.3…

Step 5 does not work even if I have a Finder window in list view. Works only in column view for me.

Instead of step 4 and 5 I would suggest using terminal command below to delete "Settings" directory from iCloud:

rm -rf ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~TextInput/Dictionaries

For me simply deleting “Dictionaries” folder worked fine. After I restarted iPhone all shortcuts came back but when deleted from iPhone settings again, disappeared forever. In your case you could not navigate to keyboard settings in iPhone if I remember correctly. I would suggest your solution only to people who have the same issue.

Otherwise, deleting “Dictionaries” from iCloud and restarting iPhone should suffice.

Still no solution for people without а Mac though

1) Turned off the original keyboard

2) Delete the short cuts

3) Delete the backup in iCloud

4) Turned on the original keyboard

5) Backup to iCloud again

I am using iOS8.1.3 and this works❗️

Jsai Joe, have you rebooted since doing that? I had tried something like your suggestion, and it worked fine until a reboot of any kind was done, be it a hard reset, soft reset or whatever. Does a reboot bring the shortcuts back? Let us know here. I hope your solution works. Too late for me. I already restored my phone as new. I'm glad I did because I had other issues that cured along with the shortcuts problem.