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You typed “definately” in a Teams message to your entire department. Nobody corrected you, but everyone noticed. Spell check should have caught that — so why didn’t it?

Microsoft Teams handles spell check differently depending on which version you use. Desktop, web, and mobile each rely on different systems. This guide walks through how to enable, fix, and improve spell check across all three.

Watch: How to Enable Spell Check in Microsoft Teams

Does Microsoft Teams Have Spell Check?

Yes and no. Teams does not have its own standalone spell check engine. Instead, it borrows spell check from whatever platform it runs on:

• Teams Desktop (Windows/Mac): Uses your operating system’s spell check service
• Teams Web App: Uses your browser’s built-in spell check
• Teams Mobile: Uses your phone’s keyboard autocorrect and spell check

This means spell check behavior varies depending on your setup. A misspelled word might get flagged on your desktop but slip through on the web app if your browser spell check is disabled.

According to Microsoft’s official Teams documentation, Teams uses the proofing language settings from your operating system or browser, and you can configure spell check for multiple languages through the Editor Spellcheck settings [1].

One important limitation: Teams has no grammar checking at all. None of the three versions check for grammar errors, tone issues, or sentence structure problems. Teams only catches misspelled words — and only if the underlying platform’s spell check is configured correctly.

How To Enable Spell Check in Teams

Teams Desktop on Windows

The new Microsoft Teams app (the one Microsoft is pushing everyone to) has a built-in spell check toggle. Here’s how to verify it’s on:

1. Open Microsoft Teams
2. Click the three-dot menu (⋯) next to your profile picture (top right)
3. Select Settings
4. Go to the General section
5. Under Language, verify Enable spell check is toggled ON

If you don’t see this toggle, your Teams version may rely entirely on Windows system spell check. In that case:

1. Open Windows Settings (Win+I)
2. Go to Time & Language → Typing
3. Enable Autocorrect misspelled words and Highlight misspelled words

Make sure your preferred language is installed under Time & Language → Language & region. Windows spell check only works for installed language packs.

Teams Desktop on Mac

Teams on macOS uses the system spell check service.

1. Open System Settings (or System Preferences on older macOS)
2. Go to Keyboard
3. Click Text Input → Input Sources → Edit
4. Enable Correct spelling automatically
5. Enable Show inline predictive text (optional)

You can also right-click in any Teams text field, go to Spelling and Grammar, and make sure Check Spelling While Typing is checked.

Teams Web App

The Teams web app has no spell check of its own. It relies 100% on your browser’s spell check.

In Google Chrome:

1. Go to chrome://settings/languages
2. Under Spell check, select Basic spell check or Enhanced spell check
3. Verify your language is listed and enabled

In Microsoft Edge:

1. Go to edge://settings/languages
2. Enable Use writing assistance
3. Verify your language is listed with spell check enabled

Using Edge as your main browser? See our dedicated guide to enable spell check in Microsoft Edge.

In Firefox:

1. Go to Settings → General
2. Under Language, check Check your spelling as you type

The Teams web app is where browser-based grammar extensions provide the most value, since there’s no native grammar layer at all.

Teams Mobile (iOS and Android)

Teams mobile relies on your phone’s keyboard for spell check. There is no separate Teams setting to configure.

• Android: Settings → System → Language & input → On-screen keyboard → select your keyboard → Text correction → enable Spell check
• iPhone: Settings → General → Keyboard → enable Auto-Correction and Check Spelling

Teams Spell Check Not Working — How To Fix

Work through these fixes in order — they cover the most common causes from desktop to web to language settings.

Fix 1: Check System Spell Check Settings (Desktop)

Since Teams desktop leans on the OS spell check, the problem is usually there. As noted in Microsoft’s Q&A community, Teams relies on the Windows spell checker service, and verifying the OS-level settings is the first troubleshooting step [2].

Windows:

1. Open Settings → Time & Language → Typing
2. Make sure Highlight misspelled words is ON
3. Make sure Autocorrect misspelled words is ON
4. Verify the correct language pack is installed under Language & region

macOS:

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input
2. Verify Correct spelling automatically is enabled
3. Check the language list — macOS spell check only works for languages you’ve added

Fix 2: Enable Browser Spell Check (Web App)

If you use Teams in a browser and spell check isn’t working:

1. Right-click inside any Teams text field
2. Look for Spell check or Spelling in the context menu
3. Make sure it’s enabled

If there’s no spell check option in the context menu, your browser’s spell check is disabled at the settings level. See the Chrome/Edge/Firefox instructions above.

Fix 3: Switch to New Teams

Microsoft is deprecating “classic” Teams. The new Teams app (launched in 2023, now the default) has better performance and more consistent spell check behavior. If you’re still on classic Teams and experiencing spell check issues:

1. Look for the Try the new Teams toggle at the top-left of the Teams window
2. Switch to new Teams
3. Your chats, channels, and settings carry over

Classic Teams had known bugs with spell check, especially after Windows updates. Upgrading to new Teams resolves most of them.

Fix 4: Check Language Settings

Spell check only works when your language settings match the language you’re typing in.

1. In Teams, go to Settings → General → Language
2. Make sure the display language matches your typing language
3. If you type in multiple languages, your OS needs to have all relevant language packs installed

A common problem: Teams is set to English, but your OS only has a French language pack installed (or vice versa). Spell check sees every word as misspelled or sees nothing as misspelled.

Fix 5: Clear Teams Cache and Reset

If spell check was previously working and suddenly stopped, a corrupted cache may be the cause.

On Windows:

1. Close Microsoft Teams completely
2. Press Win+R, type %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams, and press Enter
3. Delete the contents of the Cache, blob_storage, databases, and GPUcache folders
4. Restart Teams

On Mac:

1. Quit Teams
2. Open Finder, press Cmd+Shift+G, and go to ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams
3. Delete the Cache folder contents
4. Relaunch Teams

If Grammarly is causing issues, check if Grammarly is down.

Teams Spell Check vs Dedicated Grammar Tools

Teams’ spell check, regardless of platform, is limited to catching misspelled words. It does not evaluate whether your message makes sense, sounds professional, or uses correct grammar. Here’s what that means in practice:

• “I will revert back to you on this” — grammatically awkward (“revert” already means go back), but Teams won’t flag it
• “Please do the needful” — outdated phrasing that sounds unprofessional in most business contexts, but it’s not misspelled
• “Your welcome to join the meeting” — wrong “your” (should be “you’re”), and most basic spell checkers miss it because “your” is a real word

These are exactly the kinds of errors that matter in workplace communication. A grammar checking tool catches them. Teams does not.

Here is a comparison of what Teams spell check covers versus a dedicated grammar tool:

For Teams web users, browser extensions have full access to every text field in the app. This makes the web version the best platform for adding grammar checking on top of Teams’ basic spell check.

Need grammar help in Google Docs? See our Google Docs grammar check guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does spell check work in Teams channels and group chats?

Yes. Spell check works in all Teams text fields — direct messages, group chats, channel posts, and channel replies. It works anywhere you type, as long as the underlying spell check (OS or browser) is enabled and configured for the correct language.

Can I add custom words to the Teams dictionary?

Teams doesn’t have its own dictionary. When you right-click a flagged word and select “Add to dictionary,” it adds the word to your OS dictionary (on desktop) or browser dictionary (on web). That word will stop being flagged across all applications, not just Teams.

Why does Teams underline correct words as misspelled?

This usually happens when your language settings don’t match. For example, if your OS spell check is set to German but you’re typing in English, every English word gets flagged. Check your Teams language setting, your OS language packs, and your browser language settings. They should all include the language you type in most often.

Does spell check work in Teams meeting chat?

Yes. The meeting chat panel uses the same text input as regular Teams chats, so spell check functions identically. On desktop, it uses your OS spell check. On the web app, it uses your browser spell check. The same troubleshooting steps above apply if it is not working during meetings.

The Bottom Line

Teams spell check works, but it’s not self-contained. On desktop, make sure your OS spell check is enabled. On web, enable your browser’s spell check. On mobile, configure your keyboard’s autocorrect.

For grammar, tone, and style checking — features Teams doesn’t offer at all — a browser extension like BeLikeNative fills the gap, especially in the Teams web app where every text field is accessible to extensions.

Related guides:

• Fix spell check in Outlook too
• Gmail spell check guide
• Best free Grammarly alternatives for students
• For Notion users: add grammar checking to Notion

Sources

1. Check your spelling in multiple languages in Microsoft Teams — Microsoft Support
2. How to confirm Spell Check settings in Microsoft Teams — Microsoft Q&A