Upgraded to IOS 11 & Text Replacement Not Syncing!

I experienced the exact same problem with iOS 11 on an iPhone 7. I found the solution in a different Apple Discussions thread for people who had experienced a similar problem after iOS 10 on an iPhone 6/6s. But it also works for iOS 11 & iPhone 7 as well.

Here’s how to fix it (I don’t know if each step is necessary, but I followed it step-by-step and it worked perfectly for me):

1. Go into Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement

2. There shouldn’t be any text replacement shortcuts listed

3. Go back to Keyboard (I had all of the auto-switches for Auto-Capitalization, Auto-Correction, Check Spelling, etc. enabled)

4. Turn off Auto-Capitalization, Auto-Correction and "." Shortcut

5. Immediately turn off** your phone without leaving the page (**to clarify: turn your phone off does not mean reset your phone; you have actually manually turn off your phone off the right way)

6. Wait a minute or so before turning it back on

7. Open up Settings > General > Keyboard

8. Turn back on all the switches that you turned off in step 4

9. Wait a minute or so, and then go into Text Replacement, and all your previously saved ones should be there again

I did this and got all of my ~200 text replacements back!

Other things I tried before this:

• signing out/back in to iCloud multiple times - didn’t work
• adding/deleting new text replacements on the affected device - didn’t work
• adding/deleting new ones on my MacBook - didn’t work

Hope this helps!

Thanks very much jtown913. I have just set up my new iPhone X from my iPhone 6s, and the text replacement wasn't saving and the page was all blank. I followed your instructions, and within minutes, all my text replacements were reinstated. I had actually forgotten they all get saved via the iCloud so I didn't actually have to retype anything back in.

🙂

Thanks for the tip. This brought back the “On my way” default entry but not my list of several hundred in icloud. Phone is iPhone X, 11.2 beta5. Interestingly, when I add a shortcut on this iphone X device it shows up on all my other devices, and when I delete that new shortcut it is also quickly deleted across the other devices. But none of any test additions/changes/deletions made on the other devices ever reflects on the iPhone X. All the other devices are pre-iOS11 firmwares.

Synchronizing two columns of simple data should be trivial, yet Apple has managed to mangle it for 5 years now and wasted countless **millions** of hours of their customers’ precious time. It’s so appalling I simply have no words..

I am using an iPhone X on 11.2. None of the suggestions worked. If I add a new text shortcut On my iPhone ask, it immediately syncs to my other devices. If I delete one, it is immediately removed from all of my devices. None of my shortcuts on my other iOS devices that are saved in iCloud appear on my iPhone X.

I posted here days before you with the same exact behavior. I deleted all the new iPhone X test shortcuts and the default 'omw ' one. signed out of icloud. rebooted / hard reset three times in a row. Signed back in to icloud. Nothing. Rebooted daily and eventually they all came in. Haven't tested syncing any further - just happy to have them. Also turned on icloud contacts which i don't normally use.

I can't tell if any of the steps i did helped or not. I actually believe the shortcuts eventually come in on their own, as I am suspecting that Apple runs periodic batch syncing processes as a hack workaround to the buggy code. Perhaps bridging it to cloudkit. Not clear that this sync can be forced by the user, but honestly I don't know. Same thing happened to me ios 10. Came in eventually, then worked fine after that.

So...Try to do some triggering actions every day, plug phone in at night on WiFi, and eventually you'll likely get them. No other remedy but patience...

Shame on Apple for not fixing this!! Thank you to Slideboy for somehow discovering such an obtuse fix! Kudos to ME for somehow having the tenacity to keep searching till I found it. But mostly shame on Apple!

I have exactly the same symptoms! All of my text replacement entries are on my iPad. My new iPhone 8 (IOS 11.2.5) has only "on my way" - when I add on my iPhone, it immediately appears on my iPad. Delete on my iPhone, immediately disappears on my iPad. But the sync is working only one way, i.e., anything that I add on the iPad does not appear on the iPhone!

did you try the solution suggested by jtown973 earlier in this thread?

I would suggest give it a try — it didn’t work for me initially, so i did a fresh (encrypted) backup and factory iOS restore/ restore backup , using itunes. This puts a fresh original copy of iOS in place, replacing the series of incremental OTA updates I had previously.

Then I used jtown973’s solution and it worked the first try. You do have to follow the steps *exactly* as written, right down to which specific keyboard options to toggle off, then later back on again. Good luck!

I followed your steps exactly - still didn't work.

So I gave up, and started to create the shortcuts manually - guess what - every shortcut that I create on the iPhone is now duplicated on the iPad!

I have an open ticket with Apple tech support... waiting to hear from a "senior engineer" at Apple - not optimistic.

tried this 5 times with no luck...😠

6th time was the charm! Thank you!🙂

I don't know if it was critical; but this last time I turned the toggles back on IN THE REVERSE ORDER as turning them off.

don't know; don't care. it worked... happy happy 😀

Thanks for the tip however still didn't work. 😟

iOS 11.1.2 iPhone X

No idea, but people say things like turn off icloud and turn it back on again. That has worked for me before in the past. But what to turn off, not sure.

How can I do the same of you? After restore my backup from iCloud on my new iPhone I lost all my text replacements already made previously. And now I can add no new one manually! Very weird.

Thank you so much! This helped me with my new iPhone X.

It worked!!! Weird steps, but they did the trick <3