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Edit Windows Mail Custom Dictionary

I use Windows 10 and the mail app. Spell checking is enabled in the Mail app but I accidentally added a misspelled word as a correctly spelled word. Where is my list of words saved and how do I edit it?

When you right click on a misspelled word in the Windows Mail app, you are offered possible correct spellings or you can click on the entry with the plus (+) sign and add the word to the dictionary.

If you add a word to the dictionary and want to remove it later, you need to edit the custom dictionary file. The custom dictionary files for Windows 8 and 10 are in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Spelling\, in a subfolder identifying the language you are using.

These files are used by Windows apps and Office 2013 and Office 2016. Note that the Office applications also have additional custom and exclude dictionaries stored at C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\UProof.

You can edit the files using any of the Office applications or using Notepad. I'm including the instructions for Word below, but the process is similar in the other applications.

If you are using Word to edit the list:

  1. Go to File, Options, Proofing and click on Custom Dictionaries.
  2. In the Custom Dictionaries dialog, find and select the default.dic file for your language.
  3. Click Edit Word List…

If you are using notepad to edit the custom dictionary:

  1. Type or paste %appdata%\Microsoft\spelling into the address bar of Windows Explorer and press Enter.
  2. Double click on the folder for the language you are using.
  3. Double click on the default.dic file to open it in Notepad.
  4. Delete the words you want to remove then save and close the file.

More Information

The custom.exc file is an Exclusion dictionary. These are words you want the spell checker to check, even if they are in the dictionary. The exclusion dictionary causes the spelling engine to ignore the entries in the main dictionary for the words in the exclusion dictionary. For example, you might always want "there" marked as misspelled if you have a habit of mistyping it as "their".

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