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

Apple replaced documents & data with iCloud Drive.  I resisted changing to that at first, but it's been fine.

sigh...not working for me. I can't even get iCopyBot to work. It's stuck on "loading database from device" and never loads.

Oh goodness I'm an idiot. Wrong program. Was trying copy bot not backup bot.

For the record I had not three but SIX sub folders. I also had that same file from 2013. Let's hope it works.

So far, so good. Two hard resets, not coming back. I will say this though - I looked at the backup again after I made the deletions. I put one folder back, and the same sqlite file with the same date. The one folder (as opposed to six) has today's date, however. Time will tell.

Let me tell you the steps I took to painfully ensure I was rid of everything. So far so good, I will update...

1. Disabled iCloud drive on all four devices. Upgraded to iOS 8.4 on all. Turned off iCloud backup.

2. Deleted all local backups from iTunes.

3. Manually backed up all four devices.

4. Went into iBackupBot and deleted the keyboard folder and sqlite file REGARDLESS of the situation, although all devices but one had more than two folders, two of them had six, one had three...one had two.

5. Restored all devices from the new backups without the extra folders.

6. Deleted all backups from iTunes, and manually backed up all devices AGAIN. Made sure they still had two or less folders (they did).

7. Manually deleted ALL shortcuts from all but three of the devices. Edited the shortcuts on my main device.

8. Hard rebooted all devices (all changes still saved), disabled data and turned back on, and turned on and off device, syncd device, and hard rebooted a few more times (all changes still saved).

9. Turned iCloud Drive back on for the main device and hard rebooted. All changes still saved.

10. Turned iCloud Drive back on for the other three devices and hard rebooted. All changes still saved. Three no shortcuts, one all approved shortcuts.

11. Realized other three devices were not receiving shortcuts from main device. Signed in and out of iCloud/iTunes on one device to try to trigger a sync from the main device. Triggered.

12. A large portion of zombie cuts that I deleted from the main device sync'd back with the full dictionary to the second device. Not all, but most. I gave up on this device and in frustration completely wiped it clean. Not sure if that will help if this is the device causing all the problems or not.

So there is definitely more to this than just a local backup.

You have over-complicated things somewhat to the process I posted on page 17 (it definitely works).

I think your problem may be that you are re-booting too quickly and making too many changes too quickly.

If you read my post I state that the sync takes AGES - IE, I left it alone and went to bed after doing to modification.  I think you are not giving it time and your constant re-booting and editing is what’s causing the problem.

Two of the devices have a different apple ID but have family sharing on...should they get the keyboard updates or is it only for the same exact ID

I don't think the issue was the changing. Once I torpedo'd the iPad to complete scratch, it now works like a dream.

I can’t answer the family sharing question, sorry.

I'm glad it worked!  Since the problem is on your phone and not in the cloud per se, my experience was changing my apple ID or using multiple apple ID's has no effect.  While I don't use family sharing I assume that once you've fixed it on your devices it should fix it everywhere regardless of whether you use family sharing or not.

SSomething isn't working with sync though. So after the total sync my ipad didn't get any shortcut changes from my iPhone. I deleted a few words on my phone and came back in the am and still no change on the iPad. Signed in and out of iTunes on the iPad no change. Force reboot no change. None of the devices are corrupted...

GIve it some time.  It has to rebuild some files and folders.  Mine took hours to sync properly.  My Mac took days to start resyncing.

I can now officially confirm that this did not work. Every single zombie cut is back. I even wiped from scratch on the other device on this iTunes account. Verified not a single device I own has a corrupted backup. Deleted and restored from good backup. Verified that backup was still good. Deleted shortcuts.

This is iCloud related somehow. They're all back. All devices are blank of shortcuts. None has a corrupted backup. Turn iCloud back on and they're all coming back. Even verified after they came back that the backup still isn't corrupted and it's not.

Oh well. What a piece of junk software.

I can confirm I don't use iCloud for backups. 

If it doesn't work for you, you are the first the state that and I'm very surprised and can understand at how pis*ed off you must be feeling right now.

Still think you fiddled too much too soon though.