Stop your Mac mangling names

September 10, 2026·4 min read

A knowledge worker types on a silver laptop at a wooden desk beside a blank name badge and a small index-card box while gray placeholder blocks fill the screen.

A Mac can turn a correct surname into a common word before you finish the sentence. Acronyms lose their capitals. Specialist terms acquire an unwanted space. The fastest way to stop Mac autocorrecting names is to identify which language tool is interfering, then give that tool the right instruction.

The user dictionary, text replacements and autocomplete solve three different problems. Use the dictionary to mark a spelling as valid. Use a replacement when the output must always be exact. Use Typeahead when repeated terminology should become a contextual completion.

Three problems hiding under autocorrect

A red underline means macOS does not recognize a spelling. An automatic substitution means autocorrection believes it found a mistake. Gray text at the cursor is an inline prediction, while a shortcut expanding into a longer phrase is a text replacement.

Treating all four as autocorrect makes the settings feel inconsistent. Each behavior has its own control and its own useful role.

Teach macOS a valid spelling

For a correctly spelled name or specialist term, Control-click the word and choose Learn Spelling. Apple says the word is added to the macOS dictionary used across documents and supported apps. If you add words to the Mac dictionary by mistake, Control-click them and choose Unlearn Spelling to remove them.

Ignore Spelling is narrower. It suppresses the warning only in the current document, which suits a one-off identifier or deliberate variant that should not enter your Mac custom dictionary. Apple’s guides explain the difference between Learn Spelling and Ignore Spelling, while its Pages guide confirms that learned words can be used by other apps.

Learn cautiously around ambiguous abbreviations. Apple notes that learned words are added for all languages, so a temporary project code may be better ignored in one document.

Use replacements for exact output

Dictionary entries establish validity. They do not expand an acronym or enforce a whole phrase. Text replacements are deterministic rules, so they suit shortcuts such as qbrd becoming Quarterly Business Review or an initialism expanding with unusual capitalization intact.

Create one under System Settings > Keyboard > Text Replacements. Enter the shortcut and the exact replacement you want. Apple documents both the settings path and per-app activation.

Replacements can sync through iCloud across your Mac, iPhone and iPad. They can also be exported as a property-list file and imported on another Mac. That makes a reviewed terminology set portable, but sharing remains manual rather than a centrally managed team glossary.

Separate correction from prediction

Correct spelling automatically changes detected misspellings. Show inline predictive text displays a gray word or phrase that you can accept with Space or ignore by continuing to type. Turning off one does not turn off the other.

The system-wide controls sit under System Settings > Keyboard > Text Input > Edit. If a correction has just happened, Apple also documents Change Back as the quick way to restore what you typed.

A supported app can override the system autocorrection choice through Edit > Spelling and Grammar. An app without that menu may run its own spell checker. Text replacement is not available in every app, so check the app before assuming the system setting failed. If suggestions look wrong in more than one language, review the spelling languages in the same macOS text input settings.

Let repeated terminology become completion

A dictionary entry says a word is allowed. A fixed replacement says one exact trigger must produce one exact result. Typeahead 2.5.0 adds the adaptive layer: it learns spellings you use repeatedly, locally on your Mac, then completes them where they fit the sentence.

I know Typeahead has settled into a project when the difficult surname arrives after the first few letters, beside the specialist term I usually pair with it. The cursor keeps moving and the spelling remains mine.

Typeahead completes sentences you have started in your voice. That distinction between autocomplete and AI writing matters because the author stays in control of every sentence.

Writing never leaves the Mac. Typeahead processes writing locally. Network activity is limited to license activation, optional update checks and the one-time download of your AI model. It runs on macOS 14 or later and costs $79 one-time.

Build a vocabulary system that travels

A useful personal vocabulary system has three layers:

Learn stable names and valid single terms in the macOS dictionary.
Create text replacements for approved expansions, exact capitalization and multiword terminology.
Let Typeahead learn the repeated spellings and phrasing that depend on context.

For a team, keep the shared replacement file reviewed and versioned, then let each person’s learned dictionary and local autocomplete reflect the names and terminology they actually use. That division keeps fixed style decisions consistent without turning every personal habit into a team rule.