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Scrambled Editing in Messages on MacOS

The Messages app frequently scrambles text while I'm typing if I delete or correct text. This has been happening for a couple years and I expected at some point Apple would address it since dozens of other users have reported the problem on this forum, but no dice, it's still wonky.


Essentially, I'll delete the last couple words of a message before I've sent it and chunks of the text will get dropped into other sections of the message. If I continue to delete, the scrambled sections are dropped further back in the text string – that is, the more I delete, the more text gets distributed farther to the left.


This only happens on my laptop – not on iOS – and it never happens in other applications. I'm on a 13-inch MacBook Pro 2017 running Big Sur 11.5


To see reports from many other users with the same issue, google "messages app in macos scrambles text" and you'll see it's a widespread phenomenon. I'm sure other search terms will return wider results of the problem. Apple, I'd love if you fixed this.


Thanks.

Posted on Jul 14, 2022 3:23 PM

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7 replies

Jul 17, 2022 5:54 PM in response to Sean_B1

My apologies if I misunderstood, but my follow-up question hadsto do with platforms, not with apps. I'm having trouble on my *Mac*, not my iPhone. There's no Settings app on the Mac and I don't think I can fix the problem by going into the Settings app on my phone – unless of course that's what you're recommending, that is, that I should change a setting on my phone to fix a problem on my computer.


The reason I think you're not suggesting this is because there's no Preferences app on a Mac, so it's not possible for me to follow the recommendation that I go to Settings > General > Keyboard.


If I've misunderstood – that is, if you're saying that the keyboard setting on my phone is affecting Messages on my computer – let me know and I'll give it a try. But I suspect it's simply a miscommunication and that the issue can't be fixed that way. Let me know.


Thanks again for your help with this.

Aug 4, 2022 2:37 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

After a couple weeks this appears to have solved the issue. I turned off all "Spelling and Grammar" and "Substitutions" functions and it worked flawlessly without trouble. Then I turned "Spelling and Grammar > Check Spelling While Typing" back on to have visual spell-checking and, interestingly, it returns to the behavior of occasionally flagging strings of text that aren't misspelled – usually four or five words together that clearly have normal spaces between them. These are the types of strings it was jumbling before and erroneous reshuffling in the message.


So by turning on spellcheck I'm able to have visual verification, but by leaving "Correct Spelling Automatically" off I don't have to fight the program when it goes haywire.


Just wanted to provide an update of where things stand. Thanks, Tom, for your help.

Jul 15, 2022 2:21 PM in response to lostinhanalei

Hey there lostinhanalei,


This sounds like it’s possibly related to Auto-Correction and predictive text. Here’s how you can check those settings and turn the features off if you like:


  1. Open the Settings app. 
  2. Tap General > Keyboard. 


From there, you can turn Predictive and Auto-Correction on and off. 


Try turning those off one at a time and see if the issue continues. 


Take care.

Scrambled Editing in Messages on MacOS

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