changes reverts back.

Question

One of my user uses MAC laptop. user wants to disable spelling and grammar checking in Outlook for Mac.

Steps performed :

Open Outlook → Preferences

Go to Spelling and Grammar

Unchecked the following options:

Check spelling as you type

  Check grammar as you type
  

After applying these settings, spelling and grammar checking is disabled as expected.

However, after restarting Outlook or rebooting the machine, the application reverts to the previous behavior and spelling/grammar checking is enabled again, with words being underlined.

The same behavior is observed in Outlook on the web as well.

Is this expected behavior, or is there a supported way to permanently disable spelling and grammar checking so that the settings persist across restarts?

Answer 1

Hi Roger Roger, 

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum! Have a good day and I hope you're doing well! 

I completely understand how frustrating this can be especially when the Spelling & Grammar settings appear to be turned off, but then revert after restarting Outlook or rebooting the Mac. That’s certainly not a great experience for end users. 

First, I’d like to confirm with you: Are these the exact settings you disabled under Preferences?

Based on my testing in a virtual environment and several similar cases I’ve seen, Outlook for Mac is gradually removing the Spelling & Grammar controls from Preferences and instead integrating them into Microsoft Editor. 

In fact, in my test environment, these options no longer appear in Preferences at all. The Outlook version I’m using is 16.104 (25120915). 

In cases where customers were able to successfully disable spell check permanently, the following workaround has worked well. You can try these steps: 

1. Open any new email compose window 
2. Click inside the message body 
3. From the top menu, go to Edit > Spelling and Grammar 

4. Uncheck Correct spelling automatically 
5. Then select Language > Language… 

• Choose Do not check spelling or grammar 
• Click OK to apply the change 

After that, please restart Outlook and let me know if the behavior changes. 

If any of the options I mentioned above do not appear in your Outlook client, could you please check your Outlook version (Outlook > About Outlook) and share it with me via the private I sent earlier? This will help narrow things down, as behavior can differ between New Outlook builds. 

I hope this information is at least partially helpful. If you have any questions, concerns, or if I may have misunderstood anything, please feel free to reach out at any time. I’ll be happy to assist further. 

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Answer 2

It appears that the behavior you are experiencing, where the spelling and grammar checking settings revert back after restarting Outlook or rebooting the machine, is not expected. Typically, once you disable these settings in Outlook for Mac, they should persist across sessions.

If the settings are not being saved, it might be worth checking if there are any updates available for Outlook or the operating system that could resolve this issue. Additionally, consider resetting the Outlook preferences or checking for any conflicting add-ins that might be affecting the application’s behavior.

Unfortunately, the provided context does not contain specific guidance on permanently disabling spelling and grammar checking in Outlook for Mac or troubleshooting this particular issue. You may want to consult further documentation or support resources for more detailed assistance.