How to Turn Off Auto-Capitalization of Words on Mac

Feb 19, 2021 - 6 Comments

How to Disable auto capitalizing words on Mac

The latest versions of MacOS default to automatically capitalizing new words at the start of a sentence, similar to iOS and iPadOS. For example, if you end one sentence with a period and start another, the first word will be capitalized. In addition, other words will automatically capitalize when typed o the Mac too, including proper names, states, and countries.

If you do not want the Mac to automatically capitalize words for you, you can turn this feature off for typing on a Mac.

How to Disable Automatic Capitalization of Words in macOS

  1. Go to the  Apple menu and select “System Preferences”, then go to “Keyboard”
  2. Go to the “Text” tab
  3. Uncheck the box for “Capitalize words automatically” so that it is no longer enabled
  4. How to disable auto-capitalize of words on Mac

Turning off auto-capitalization takes effect immediately, much like enabling the features, and you can immediately start typing without words capitalizing automatically on the Mac.

While you’re in the same keyboard settings, you may also be interested in turning off auto-correct on Mac or even disabling the automatic period typing on Mac too.

Whether you like this setting or not really depends on how you type and use a keyboard, and perhaps if you’re also using an iPhone or iPad or other software with predictive typing behavior. Fortunately the settings are easy to customize, so you can easily choose what suits you!

If at any point you decide to reverse this setting and want the auto-capitalize feature back again, you can turn on the auto-capitalize words and auto-type periods on the Mac easily by returning to the same preference panel and making that adjustment again.

Something else worth mentioning is that while this particular setting applies to the Mac in general, some software actually has its own auto-correct and auto-capitalize settings. For example, even if you turn this setting off for the Mac, you have to separately disable Microsoft Word capitalizing the first letter of a sentence automatically otherwise the setting will persist in that app. Many other word processing apps are like this too, so keep that in mind if you use various apps to type on the Mac.

While this particular setting obviously applies to the Mac, you can also stop automatic capitalization of words on iPhone and iPad and stop the period automatically typing on iPhone and iPad too, and you can turn off autocorrect on iPhone and iPad too if desired. Also of note is that if you use an external hardware keyboard with an iPad, the auto-settings are separate for iPad hardware keyboards as they are for on-screen keyboards.

And of course it’s easy to re-enable auto-capitalization of words on the Mac too, simply repeat the steps above but check the box for the feature, rather than unchecking it.

This applies to all modern versions of macOS, whether it’s Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, or otherwise.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

6 Comments

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  1. Jack Bloom says:

    The 2022 version for a 16″ MacBook Pro is this; Go to Apple icon (upper left corner). Click ‘System Settings’. The updated version of Ventura has all of the icons in list form now (which i do not like). Scroll down and click ‘Keyboard’. After clicking ‘Keyboard’, about halfway down you’ll see ‘Text Input’. Under that you’ll see ‘Input Sources’…to the right you’ll see ‘U.S.’ (for United States, your country may differ) with a small box reading ‘Edit…’. Click the ‘Edit…’ box…you’ll then see a list including ‘Capitalize words automatically’. You may turn this on or off to the right of it.

    • dave says:

      lol, i love how this is buried deeper in the settings than the core of the earth now. also that searching for any variation of automatic capitalization in their help just quietly says “no”.

  2. Jackie says:

    I have tried this fix. The problem is everytime I use the word And And then hit the space bar, it capitalizes it. No matter And where it is in And the sentence. I can’t get And it fixed. Any suggestions?

  3. Tere says:

    My problem is even after I do this, it wants to capitalize the first letter of my file names. When I SaveAs in grading students work, I put my initials and date first, e.g., tn22Feb4. But after this latest Monterey update, it insists on changing it to Tn or even worse, nT as if there is a keyboard lag. Help.

  4. LCSG says:

    I’d like to offer a more elegant solution. Occasionally I get unwanted caps when there’s a period in the middle of a sentence, e.g. this one, or a sentence with etc. or etal. in it. Rarely do I begin a sentence with any of those examples — i.e. this one. Autocorrect fixes upper case I so a quick backspace and usually I can fix it. That one is the worst. But for everyday typing, generally a fast double spacebar generates a period and a slow space – space doesn’t.

  5. Ken Jones says:

    That’s good to know, too often I find myself having inadvertently capped the first two letters of a word, my caps-key-finger remaining on the key a little too long. Now that I know I can turn it off, I realize that it’s already on, and I don’t have to worry about doing the capitalization myself. awesome. or not. what? wait, I thought it was already turned on. fascinating.

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