How to Use Charm's Spells Feature for Spelling Correction

Charm's Spells feature is real-time spelling correction that runs across every Mac app as you type. To activate it, click the Charm icon in your menu bar and ensure the Spells toggle is on - it is enabled by default. From that point, Spells silently monitors your keystrokes and fixes misspellings within 200 milliseconds, with no popups and no red underlines.

What is Charm Spells?

Spells is one of three features inside Charm - alongside Polish for grammar correction and Oracle for word prediction. While Polish and Oracle are off by default, Spells is active the moment you install Charm and grant Accessibility permission.

Unlike macOS's built-in autocorrect, which only works in a handful of apps and surfaces errors as red underlines, Spells operates at the system level. It catches spelling mistakes in Mail, Slack, Notes, VS Code, browsers, and virtually any other app you can type in. Across typical daily typing sessions, users encounter an average of 8-12 spelling errors per hour - Spells handles all of them silently in the background.

How to enable Spells

If you have already installed Charm and granted Accessibility permission, Spells is almost certainly already running. Here is how to confirm and control it:

• Click the Charm icon in your Mac menu bar (top-right area of your screen)
• Look for the Spells toggle in the popover that appears
• Ensure the toggle is switched on - it will appear highlighted when active

That is it. No configuration is needed beyond the toggle. Spells immediately starts monitoring your typing across all apps. If you have not yet installed Charm, see the complete setup guide for Charm on Mac to get started.

How Spells corrects text

When you type a misspelled word, Spells detects the error as soon as you complete the word - typically triggered by a space, punctuation, or Return key press. The correction happens in under 200 milliseconds, replacing the misspelled text with the correct spelling automatically.

You will notice a brief cyan glow effect on the corrected word. This is Charm's "correction glow" - a subtle visual signal that something was changed. The glow fades within about a second. It is designed to let you know a correction happened without breaking your focus or pulling your eyes away from where you are typing.

The correction glow is the only visual output Spells produces. There are no popups, no dialogue boxes, no inline suggestions to dismiss. You simply see the correct word where the typo was.

What Spells corrects

Spells is optimised for the kinds of mistakes that appear most often in everyday typing - not obscure vocabulary, but the fast, habitual errors that slip through even when you know how to spell a word correctly.

Common correction categories include:

• Standard misspellings: teh → the, recieve → receive, occured → occurred
• Adjacent-key typos: hte → the, wriet → write, frmo → from
• Doubled letters: metting → meeting, dinned → dined, sucess → success
• Missing letters: writng → writing, accomodation → accommodation
• Phonetic misspellings: beleive → believe, definately → definitely

Spells handles spelling only. It will not rewrite awkward sentences or flag word-choice issues. Grammar correction is the role of Charm's Polish feature - for a walkthrough of that, see How to Use Charm's Polish Feature.

What Spells does not correct

Understanding what Spells is not designed to do helps you get the most out of Charm as a whole.

Spells does not touch:

• Grammar: sentence structure, verb tense, and punctuation are handled by Polish
• Word prediction: next-word suggestions come from Oracle
• Style: Spells does not suggest rewrites or improve tone
• Password fields: macOS prevents all external apps from reading or modifying password inputs by design - this applies to every spelling tool, not just Charm

How to undo a Spells correction

Occasionally Spells will correct a word you intended to type - a technical term, a proper name, or an informal shorthand. There are two ways to revert the change immediately:

Option 1 - Cmd+Z: Press Command + Z right after the correction. This is the standard macOS undo shortcut and works in virtually every text input across the operating system. The original text is restored exactly as you typed it.

Option 2 - Backspace: Press the Delete or Backspace key immediately after the correction. This reverts the change and lets you continue from where you were.

Both methods work in any Mac app - there is no special Charm UI to interact with.

Tips for getting the most from Spells

Spells is designed to run all the time as a background tool. A few habits help it work best:

Leave it on permanently. Because Spells operates below the surface - no popups, no interruptions - there is rarely a reason to toggle it off. Users who leave it running continuously report it becoming effectively invisible after a few days. You stop noticing it and simply type with fewer errors.

Disable Charm for specific apps if needed. If you work in an app where spelling corrections would be disruptive - a code editor with lots of variable names, or a terminal - you can exclude that app without turning Spells off globally. Click the Charm icon while that app is in focus and select "Disable for [App Name]". Spells continues working everywhere else.

Pair Spells with Polish for cleaner writing. Spells handles word-level accuracy. Polish handles sentence-level grammar. Together, the two features cover the most common writing errors the average person makes in a day. For a broader comparison of your spelling correction options on macOS, see Best Autocorrect Apps for Mac.

Frequently asked questions

How do I turn on Charm's Spells feature?

Click the Charm icon in your Mac menu bar and check that the Spells toggle is on. Spells is enabled by default after installation, so in most cases it is already active from the moment you set up Charm.

What kinds of spelling mistakes does Spells fix?

Spells corrects standard misspellings (recieve to receive), adjacent-key typos (hte to the), doubled letters (metting to meeting), missing letters (writng to writing), and some phonetic misspellings. It does not correct grammar - that is handled by Charm's Polish feature.

How do I undo a correction Spells made?

Press Cmd+Z immediately after the correction to undo it. You can also press the Delete or Backspace key right after the correction to revert the change. Both methods work in any Mac app without any Charm-specific UI.

Does Spells work in every Mac app?

Yes. Spells works in any app that accepts text on macOS - Mail, Slack, Notes, VS Code, Chrome, Safari, and thousands more. The only exception is password fields, which macOS protects from all external apps by design.

Can I stop Spells from correcting a specific word?

Yes. If a specific word keeps being incorrectly changed, you can add it to your ignore list via the Charm menu bar icon. Charm will leave that word untouched while continuing to correct everything else.