The Cloud-Based Spellchecker
By default, Google Chrome includes a basic, offline dictionary to highlight misspelled words as you type in web forms. However, Chrome also offers an “Enhanced spell check” feature, often labelled as “Use a web service to help resolve spelling errors.” When this feature is activated, Chrome stops relying on its small internal dictionary and instead sends every single word you type—in emails, chat boxes, and forum posts—directly to Google’s servers for real-time analysis.
While this cloud-based approach provides significantly better grammar suggestions and catches complex contextual errors, it is a massive privacy concern. Sending the contents of your private messages, internal company documents, and secure web forms to a remote server for analysis is unacceptable in many high-security or privacy-conscious environments. If you want to ensure your keystrokes stay strictly on your local machine, you must disable the web-based spell checking service.
How to Turn Off Enhanced Spell Check
You can revert Chrome to its basic, offline dictionary via the Sync and Google Services menu.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the window and select Settings.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on Languages.
- Under the “Spell check” section, look for the radio buttons that control how the feature operates.
- You will see options for “Basic spell check” and “Enhanced spell check.”
- Select the radio button next to Basic spell check.
- (Alternatively, if you want to disable spell checking entirely, toggle the main “Check for spelling errors when you type text on web pages” switch to the Off position).
Chrome will immediately sever the connection to Google’s spelling servers. It will now only check your typing against the small dictionary file stored locally on your hard drive, ensuring your text remains private.