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Text replacement / keyboard shortcuts gone after iOS 10

Is anyone else experiencing the loss of their text replacement shortcuts after updating to iOS 10? I feel like this is the opposite problem we had here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6656922?start=465&


Everything else transferred over in my settings (for example, my extra keyboards are installed, my frequently used emoji are the same, my bluetooth connections are all there, etc) except this.


I went from literally a thousand+ text replacements to the default "omw" (On my way!) replacement.


I've tried turning on and off iCloud drive (although tech says the keyboard shortcuts are stored in the local backup not the cloud) and restarting the phone, which is a trick I found online. It doesn't work.

iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 9.1

Posted on Sep 14, 2016 11:17 AM

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41 replies

Jan 18, 2017 5:17 PM in response to FeBe95

Thank you for this tip. Unfortunately this did not work for me. I tried multiple times, even switching off all the switches in the process one time. I'm very sad and frustrated by this. I wish Apple would just add a way to force refresh or sync the items.


There's even a process for backing up your MacOS ones and installing them on another MacOS device, but this doesn't work for iOS — which is where I need it after a wipe and restore on my iPhone 6s.

Mar 21, 2017 7:32 AM in response to Matthew110607

This started happening to my phone about a month ago. No reason at all so far as I could see. They're gone. All of them.

I tried the iCloud thing but I don't use it so I toggled it on and off again with the reboot. It worked. For a few days. Then they just vanished again.

Tried all other remedies. Nothing.

It makes me really concerned about what else can just vanish in this thing. Shortcuts is annoying, but I only had about 40 of them so I can replace them (to have them disappear again, in sure).

There have been several updates since this thread began so you'd think this would have been solved by now.

Really worrisome.

Mar 29, 2017 11:19 AM in response to JC84x

Did this work for you on iOS 10.2.1? Don't need it now but I've had my shortcuts/text replacements all disappear on each of the updates 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and Apple, as noted, never seemed to have a clue that it was happening let alone a successful resolution. I've had to cut and paste from backups to regain mine over those updates. As the techs tried to trouble shoot with me their only notion was that it was "some kind of issue with iCloud".


I know we're all hoping that they don't "dump" on the next major update.


Have a great Hump Day, everybody! 😎

Apr 11, 2017 6:06 PM in response to Matthew110607

In iOS 10.3.1 (don't know when this was added), go to Settings / General / Reset / Reset Keyboard Dictionary . This is what finally did it for me. In theory, it wipes the text replacements clean, but as soon as I went in, all of mine were replaced. I had added two new ones on my Mac. Don't know if that mattered in the end or not.


Don't know if it mattered or not, but these are part of the iCloud sync, which syncs whenever your device is plugged into a power source, turned on, and in sleep mode. I also did innumerable reboots trying the many proposed solutions, none of which worked until I found this reset feature.


Note, in one response, it says to choose the "reset all settings" option; that was not necessary for me, just "reset keyboard dictionary." Hope this helps others! What a pain!

Apr 30, 2017 7:15 PM in response to FeBe95

I did this (Referring to the post by FeBe95) and it ACTUALLY WORKED!!! (to some degree...)

I did these steps and didn't see anything at first but then I noticed that a keyboard shortcut I had created no more than 5-10 minutes before doing these things (hence why I looked into seeing if there was a way to get iPhone text replacement to sync to Mac) had appeared in my text replacement on my Mac. Since this was LITERALLY the only sign of something working in QUITE some time now I tried editing one of my shortcuts on my phone by simply adding the letter "q" to the shortcut part of it and then saving it. after a couple seconds the text replacement popped up on the list on my Mac!!! needless to say I was a bit excited since I've looked over a lot of different possible fixes and haven't found ANY that worked with getting my devices to talk to each other. I started adding "q" to all of my shortcuts and got all the way down to the text replacements that start with "n" before I thought to check that it was still syncing....unfortunately my text replacements had only synced up to the last one I had for "c" and then stopped there...If I was to guess I'd say if you get this to work GO SLOW!!!! wait for each text replacement to sync to your Mac before you add the next one and you may be able to fix your issue.

I tried going through the steps 2-3 more times after I noticed it stopped syncing to get it working again but haven been unable to get it to work again.....

IF ANYONE FIGURES OUT A SOLUTION TO THIS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!! I will try to remember to come back to this post if I manage to figure out a solution but unless I get some kind of response to this or I find the solution some time this week, chances of that happening will likely begin to decline....

Apr 30, 2017 7:16 PM in response to Nathrelor

I did this (Referring to the post by FeBe95) and it ACTUALLY WORKED!!! (to some degree...)

I did these steps and didn't see anything at first but then I noticed that a keyboard shortcut I had created no more than 5-10 minutes before doing these things (hence why I looked into seeing if there was a way to get iPhone text replacement to sync to Mac) had appeared in my text replacement on my Mac. Since this was LITERALLY the only sign of something working in QUITE some time now I tried editing one of my shortcuts on my phone by simply adding the letter "q" to the shortcut part of it and then saving it. after a couple seconds the text replacement popped up on the list on my Mac!!! needless to say I was a bit excited since I've looked over a lot of different possible fixes and haven't found ANY that worked with getting my devices to talk to each other. I started adding "q" to all of my shortcuts and got all the way down to the text replacements that start with "n" before I thought to check that it was still syncing....unfortunately my text replacements had only synced up to the last one I had for "c" and then stopped there...If I was to guess I'd say if you get this to work GO SLOW!!!! wait for each text replacement to sync to your Mac before you add the next one and you may be able to fix your issue.

I tried going through the steps 2-3 more times after I noticed it stopped syncing to get it working again but haven been unable to get it to work again.....

IF ANYONE FIGURES OUT A SOLUTION TO THIS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!! I will try to remember to come back to this post if I manage to figure out a solution but unless I get some kind of response to this or I find the solution some time this week, chances of that happening will likely begin to decline....

Sep 15, 2016 12:54 PM in response to Matthew110607

This is so annoying! I have had the same thing happen each time I upgraded phones too. I have an iPhone 6S+. After upgrading from a 5 to a 6 then to the 6S+ I spoke at length with Apple Tech Support about having lost all shortcuts/text replacements. They had never heard of the problem all though the forums were full of the same issue!


Apple, please resolve this. FINALLY!

Text replacement / keyboard shortcuts gone after iOS 10

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