How to Turn Off Spell Check on Any Device or App

Spell check is one of those features that quietly runs in the background on almost every device and application you use. For most people, it's helpful — but there are real situations where it gets in the way. Whether you're writing code, drafting content in a specialized field, working in another language, or simply tired of red underlines interrupting your flow, knowing how to turn off spell check is a practical skill worth having.

The catch is that "spell check" isn't a single switch. It lives in different places depending on your operating system, browser, and application — and turning it off in one place doesn't turn it off everywhere.

What Spell Check Actually Does (and Why You Might Want It Off)

Spell check works by comparing what you type against a built-in dictionary. When a word isn't recognized, it flags it — usually with a red underline. More advanced versions include autocorrect, which changes words automatically, and grammar check, which flags sentence structure issues.

These are technically separate features, even though people often group them together. When you turn off "spell check," you may only be disabling the visual underlines — autocorrect might still be running separately, and vice versa. Knowing that distinction matters before you start changing settings.

Common reasons people want it disabled:

• Technical writing or coding — variable names, commands, and syntax get flagged constantly
• Multilingual work — typing in a language the dictionary doesn't recognize
• Creative or stylistic writing — intentional unconventional spelling or dialect
• Performance — on older or lower-powered devices, background checks can slow down text editors
• Distraction-free writing — some writers prefer to edit in a separate pass

Turning Off Spell Check by Platform 🖥️

Windows

In Windows, spell check is managed at the system level and also within individual apps.

System-wide (Windows 10/11): Go to Settings → Time & Language → Typing. Here you'll find toggles for Highlight misspelled words and Autocorrect misspelled words. Turning these off affects most native Windows apps, including Notepad and Mail.

Third-party apps like Microsoft Word or Google Chrome maintain their own spell check settings independently.

macOS

On a Mac, spell check is controlled through the Edit menu of most applications. Go to Edit → Spelling and Grammar and uncheck Check Spelling While Typing. This setting applies per-application, not system-wide.

For a broader change, go to System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input → Input Sources → Edit, where you can disable autocorrect and spelling corrections globally for the operating system layer.

iPhone and iPad (iOS/iPadOS)

Go to Settings → General → Keyboard. Here you'll find separate toggles for:

• Auto-Correction (autocorrects as you type)
• Check Spelling (underlines unrecognized words)

These are independent — you can disable one without affecting the other. Note that some third-party keyboards (like Gboard or SwiftKey) have their own internal settings that override system preferences.

Android

Android spell check settings vary more by manufacturer and keyboard app than iOS does. For stock Android, go to Settings → General Management → Samsung Keyboard Settings (on Samsung) or Settings → System → Languages & Input → On-screen keyboard (on Pixel and near-stock Android).

Within the keyboard settings, look for Spell check or Auto-correction toggles. If you're using a third-party keyboard, those settings live inside the keyboard app itself.

Turning Off Spell Check in Specific Applications

Microsoft Word

Go to File → Options → Proofing. Here you can uncheck Check spelling as you type and Mark grammar errors as you type. You can apply these changes to the current document only, or change them as a default for all new documents.

Word also lets you exclude specific text from spell check — useful if you want to keep it on globally but disable it for code blocks or technical terms within a document.

Google Docs

Go to Tools → Spelling and grammar and uncheck Show spelling suggestions and Show grammar suggestions individually. This applies to the current document only — there's no global setting across all Docs files.

Google Chrome (and other browsers)

Chrome has a built-in spell check for text fields across websites. Go to Settings → Advanced → Languages, then manage spell check from there. You can turn off the basic spell check or disable Enhanced spell check, which sends typed text to Google's servers for processing — a privacy consideration worth knowing about.

Other browsers like Firefox and Edge have similar settings in their respective language or privacy sections.

VS Code and Code Editors ✍️

Most code editors don't enable spell check by default, but if you've installed an extension like Code Spell Checker, you'll need to disable it from the Extensions panel or adjust workspace settings in settings.json.

The Variables That Change What "Turning It Off" Means

This is where individual situations diverge significantly. Someone turning off spell check in Microsoft Word for a technical document has a completely different path than someone trying to stop Safari from autocorrecting on an iPhone. A developer using a browser-based editor might need to adjust both the browser settings and the web app's own preferences.

The right approach depends on which app you're actually working in, which device and OS you're using, and whether you want spell check off permanently or just for specific contexts. Those details — your actual setup and workflow — are what determine which steps actually apply to you. 🔧