How to Turn Off Auto-Caps on Mac (2023)

Disable the automatic capitalization of words while typing in your Apple apps.

By Tommy Boynton Updated 01/12/2023

By default, your Mac will automatically capitalize certain words (such as at the beginning of a sentence, a technical term, or a city's name). While this is usually helpful, there are times when automatic capitalization is inaccurate and becomes annoying to fix. Below, we'll cover how to turn off automatic capitalization on your Mac.

How to Turn Off Auto-Capitalization on Mac

For more handy Mac tips, sign up for our free Tip of the Day Newsletter. Now, why would you turn off auto-caps? Perhaps you're authoring a technical document, or you speak German and want to type essen (to eat) without it becoming the northwestern city of Essen. For either case, here's how to turn off auto-capitalization in System Preferences on your Mac. Once disabled, this auto-correct capitalization feature will be disabled for all native Apple Apps on your device.

Click the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen.
Select System Preferences.
Click Keyboard.
Click the Text tab at the top of the window.
Click to deselect the box next to Capitalize words automatically.

Once you disable this setting, you will need to manually capitalize the words you type in any Apple app on your device. If you ever want to re-enable automatic capitalization, just follow the steps above to enable the function. It's important to note that this feature will not disable automatic capitalization for third-party software, such as Microsoft Word, and this will need to be disabled separately.

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Tommy Boynton

Tommy Boynton is a Freelance Writer for iPhone Life who lives in Fairfield, Iowa. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Tommy is a member of the vocal group The Four Freshmen who have been touring world wide since 1948. He composes song cycles under the band name The Mimzees, is an avid soccer player and fan, loves to play disc golf, and loves to spend time with his cats Alice and Little Brother, and dog Yoda.

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