The Autocorrect Annoyance
macOS inherits many of the autocorrect features found on the iPhone and iPad, bringing them directly to your desktop keyboard. One of the most prominent features is automatic capitalisation, where your Mac will automatically capitalise the first letter of a word if it follows a full stop and a space. While this is helpful for drafting formal emails, it is incredibly annoying for programmers writing code, terminal users typing commands, or anyone who frequently uses full stops for file naming conventions (like script.py or image.png).
How to Disable Automatic Capitalisation
You can turn off this specific autocorrect feature system-wide across all your macOS applications.
1. Click the Apple logo () in the top-left corner of the menu bar.
2. Select System Settings from the drop-down menu (or System Preferences on older Macs).
3. Scroll down the left-hand sidebar and click on Keyboard.
4. In the right-hand pane, look for the “Text Input” section and click the Edit… button next to “Input Sources”.
5. A new window will appear. Look in the main list of toggles for the setting labelled Capitalise words automatically.
6. Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.
7. Click Done to save your changes.
Application-Specific Settings
Disabling this setting in System Settings will stop the behaviour in almost all native macOS applications, including Safari, Messages, and Notes. However, some third-party applications (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs) use their own independent autocorrect engines. If you find that text is still being automatically capitalised in Word, you will need to open Word’s specific preferences menu, navigate to the AutoCorrect tab, and disable the “Capitalize first letter of sentences” option there as well.