[Windows Tip] How to Disable Built-in Spell Checker Feature (Autocorrect Words) in Internet Explorer

Microsoft’s newer OS such as Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 come with new versions of Internet Explorer web browser which come with a few new features, UI updates and performance improvements.

These new IE versions also come with a built-in spell checker tool which automatically checks and corrects spelling and grammar mistakes in webpages. You can check following exclusive reviews of IE10 and IE11 to read more about them:

[IE10 Review] What’s New in Microsoft Internet Explorer 10?

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[IE11 Review] List of Features That Have Been Removed or Added

But the built-in spell checker doesn’t work as good as its supposed to do for some users. A few IE users have complained about this spell-checker feature and they want to disable it permanently.

Today in this tutorial, we are going to tell you how to turn off built-in spell-checker in IE10 and IE11 versions. The instructions are different for Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 operating systems.

For Windows 7 Users:

1. Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools icon present in toolbar. You can also press “Alt+X” keys together to open it.

2. Now click on “Manage add-ons” option present in Tools menu. It’ll open add-ons manager window.

3. Now click on “Spelling Correction” option given in left-side pane and uncheck the option “Enable spelling correction” given at the bottom of the window as shown in following screenshot:

Disable_Spell_Checker_IE10.png

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4. That’s it. Close the window and you have successfully disabled built-in spell checker tool in Internet Explorer 10.

For Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Users:

1. Move your mouse cursor to top-right or bottom-right corner of screen to access Charms Bar and click on Settings option.

2. Now click on “Change PC settings” option given at the bottom.

3. It’ll open Metro Control Panel or PC Settings page. Click on “General” section given in left-hand side in Windows 8. If you are using Windows 8.1, click on “PC & devices -> Typing“.

Disable_Spell_Check_Windows_8.png

4. Now in right-side, turn off following 2 options:

  • Autocorrect misspelled words
  • Highlight misspelled words

5. That’s it. It’ll disable spell checker feature in Internet Explorer as well as the whole operating system.

Thanks to our readers “joks” and “rkkdjb” for sharing this info…

For Windows 10 Users:

1. Click on Start Menu and then select Settings option. Alternatively, you can direct open Settings page by pressing WIN+I keys together.

2. Now click on “Devices” icon and then click on “Typing” link given in left-side pane.

PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch this page using “ms-settings:typing” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.

3. Now in right-side, turn off following 2 options:

  • Autocorrect misspelled words
  • Highlight misspelled words

Disable_Spell_Checker_IE11_Windows_10.png

4. That’s it. It’ll disable spell checker feature in Internet Explorer as well as the whole operating system.

Are you also using IE10 or IE11? Did you also want to disable the spell-checker feature? Feel free to share your feedback in your comment…

Published in: Internet Explorer, Troubleshooting Guides, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

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  1. If you developed web pages, then you will know that Internet Explorer is costing you a ton of time because it’s incompatible with a lot of things, like HTML (some tags), HTML5, CSS3, etc.

    However, they seems work really hard to make improvement. IE 10 is passing more test of HTML5 and CSS3. Yet, it still far behind from other browsers.

  2. Thank-you! I just downloaded IE10 and I hate the spell checker. This worked to remove it.

  3. Thanks for this! You just saved my sanity after an automatic update replaced my browser and I was not only getting red squiggles under every word, but also “corrections”. And of course the “guide” to the new browser made no mention of where to find this…

  4. IE10 desktop version in win8
    I can’t find anyway to disable it short of disabling Enhanced Protected Mode, which sort of breaks it and forces online tabs to be 32bit. The system spell checker doesn’t seem to disable it.

  5. Yes, it is NOT POSSIBLE to disable the spellcheck dictionary in IE 10 on Windows 8 !

    How to do ? Registry maybe ?

  6. automatic update, no warning, and bang goes your work, MS could improve their politeness to ask you if you like to install it.

  7. You can turn it off on Windows 8 by

    a. Press the Windows Key + C
    b. On the Charms bar select Settings
    c. Select Change PC Settings
    d. Select General
    e. Under General there are Spelling selections
    f. Autocorrect misspelled words – Turn off
    g. Highlight misspelled words – Turn off
    h. Restart IE and the Word Expander is much happier.

  8. Well, disabling through “Manage Add-Ons” doesn’t work. I don’t have it enabled there in any way whatever, but it’s still interfering with my work. As it interferes with anybody who has some foreign words to use. Any spell checker is an impediment, but one that can’t be turned off is offensive.

  9. Same here – IE 10 self-installed automatically and now I am losing loads of work time trying to get rid of the spell check or at least change it to Spanish for this one email. Have unchecked the spell check box as indicated but it is still going. This is really annoying and I think it’s what will finally send me over to Chrome or Firefox. Grrrrr!

  10. It still doesn’t work – the spellchecker is disabled in my ie tools manage add-ons etc and still it capitalises when I don’t want and ‘corrects’ my stylistic choices (although not in this message…?).

    I utterly hate autocorrect. Always have always will.

  11. I found that if I turn it off, it will come back unless I close IE immediately after unchecking spellcheck. Now it is gone. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    I hate spellcheck. If I want to abbreviate a word I don’t want a red reminder that it is not an actual word. So glad to get rid of it.

  12. For users who work in a several-language environment (many Europeans!), this feature is very poorly implemented. The auto-correction feature is just plain broken–constantly uppercasing words in the middle of sentence for no obvious reason!

    Apparently the feature prioritizes the language designation in the HTML text for a page. If the page is in French, the spelling checking is for French – even if the entire text being typed is in English. If that is missing, the current text-entry setting for the Windows GUIO is used, but that apparently only applies if there is no HTML code in the webpage specifying the language and one must do tricks to fix the keyboard layout so that you can say, type English on a Swedish keyboard.

    Many international websites do set the language for a page – but incorrectly. The incorrect setting takes precedence and the text-entry setting in Windows has no effect.

    I have yet to find a quickly available override for the language choice made by IE 10. Att plötsligt bytta till svenska mitt i en ny mening går inte – även efter man ändra standard språk under manage addons. (Translation: Quickly changing over to entering text in Swedish in a new sentence doesn’t work – even after changing the default language under Manage addons. )

    Tis a pity!

  13. i went nuts trying to find where my email provider was controlling my Spell Check so i could disable it .. then i finally found a line which sends you to IE who controls the whole system. Wow. so i googled:

    :: how do i get my internet explorer 10 to turn off auto spellcheck ::

    and here i got the answer clearly, simply, and immediately . . thanks

  14. @zydrius32: bulls**t. IE is actually a lot faster than Firefox. Chrome is faster than IE, but yeah, it has practically no features in comparison.

  15. Thank you. The spell check did not work at all and now I got rid of it. Simple and effective. Thanks so much.

  16. teh teh teh waht
    lol, thank you thank you. I never would have found that. and btw, I like IE for some things, Firefox for others, and Chrome because of all those cool tabs. teh teh teh oh this is wonderful.

  17. I want to disable the grammar check but not the spellcheck. I am really fed up with it telling me that I should write ‘do not instead of ‘don’t’. I know what I want to write better than it does. Any ideas, please? By the way, it keeps making unwelcome suggestions over vocabulary choices. Just an example: if I write ‘lady’, it tells me I should have written ‘woman’ or ‘person’. Infuriating.

  18. Isn’t there a difference between “auto-correct” and spell check? I don’t mind it pointing out words I may have mistyped, I don’t want it correcting them with the word it thinks I meant….

  19. Thanks!! It was so annoying and now it’s great. It capitalized all nouns as the language was set to German.

  20. this actually works:
    open outlook, click new mail, click file, click options, click spelling and autocorrect tab in ABC column, uncheck spelling as you type and uncheck mark grammar errors. Click OK.
    Done and permanent.

    Open Word, click File, Click Options, Click Proofing, Uncheck what you hate, Click OK.
    Done and dusted

    Yes its that easy

  21. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! (This has been driving me c.zy for a long time — and your fix is SO easy!!)

  22. At last an answer! Thanks, because all other search results lead to an IE add-on, but until your information, nothing referred to a Windows 8.1 setting. You saved me from an ulcer.

  23. Realy most boring thing about the spell check in IE11 is that it
    a) doesn’t recognise the language being typed
    b) it ignores the fact that I have several LIP installed (english, german, chinese)
    c) although OS is in english it corrects english words according to german spell rules….

    The hints about Windows 10 has blown away the spell check. Just restart of the browser is needed. In case it doesn’t work, check the task manager if there is a hung iexplore.exe and kill it. In case it is back tomorrow check whether you started with a temporary profile, or if there is a GPO that revives the IE11 spell checker.

  24. Sorry, but this is not working in Edge. I disabled it, I even did a reboot and it still keeps correcting the words. This is so annoying and reduces productivity. If Windows tried to convince me to use Edge, they achieved the opposite

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