How to turn off autocorrect and predictive text in Android

One of the (many) great things about Android is that it’s so customisable. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to go to change settings, though, so here we explain how to turn off predictive text on Android and how to set other keyboard preferences.

We’re using a vanilla version of Android Nougat with the default Android keyboard for this walkthrough, though the steps should be similar whatever your device.

Turn off autocorrect in Android

1. Open the Settings menu on your phone or tablet and select Languages & Input.

2. Tap Virtual keyboard under Keyboard and input methods.

3. Select Android Keyboard.

4. Select Text correction.

5. Slide off the toggle next to Auto-correction.

Turn off predictive text in Android

1. Open the Settings menu on your phone or tablet and select Languages & Input.

2. Tap Virtual keyboard under Keyboard and input methods.

3. Select Android Keyboard.

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4. Select Text correction.

5. Slide off the toggle next to Next-word suggestions.

Text correction options

Another option in the ‘Text correction’ menu is your ‘Personal dictionary’. You can add words to this, and it’s useful if Android tends to auto-correct someone’s name or another word you use regularly.

When you add a word, you can also enter a shortcut to type that word – that’s invaluable when you have long or complex words.

Yet more options include toggles for showing correction suggestions; personalised suggestions (which shows words you type a lot or are learned from other Google services); and showing contact names as suggestions.

Gesture typing

If you back up a level from the ‘Text correction’ menu, you’ll find the ‘Gesture typing’ menu. In that, you can disable the ability to type words by swiping across the keyboard, turn off the gesture trail and turn off automatically adding spaces between words when you swipe over the spacebar.

Advanced settings

In the ‘Advanced’ menu, you can set the delay time for a long key press – such as when you hold down ‘T’ to get the number 5 – and the vibration duration for a keypress. Here you can also prevent usage stats being sent to Google.