Predictive text on the iPhone will never suggest any of 4,513 English phrases kept on a built-in list. Swipe typing, which Apple calls QuickPath, won’t produce most of them either. Researcher Derik Kauffman pulled the list out of the iOS 27.0 keyboard’s data files and published it on his Swipeblocked site. Apple doesn’t publish the list, and there’s no setting to switch it off. Typing a phrase letter by letter still works every time.
What’s on the iPhone keyboard’s hidden phrase list
The list covers slurs, sexual terms and drug references. It also reaches into political slogans, historical events and public figures. The political entries cut both ways: left wing conspiracy and right wing conspiracy are both on it, as are sleepy Joe and dictator Trump.
Not every entry blocks swiping. Swipeblocked marks several as never suggested but still swipeable. Those include dictator Trump, make America great again, illegal immigrant and Covid was a hoax.
Some pairings on the list are hard to explain:
- Gendered: bad girl is blocked, bad boy is not.
- Racial: white man and I’m white are blocked, while black man and I’m black are not.
- Wording: Taiwan is country is blocked, but Taiwan is a country goes through.
- Apple’s own app: iMessage isn’t working is on the list.
How the filter changes what you swipe
According to Macworld, iOS stores the blocked phrases as a hash table of word IDs rather than plain text. On a match, the keyboard won’t suggest the word. While you swipe, it picks a different word, and it can even rewrite a word you already entered.
Swipeblocked gives an example. Type Left wing, then swipe conspiracy, and the keyboard changes wing to wrong. Because matching works on exact word sequences, slightly different wording can slip through.
Single words carry their own labels too, Macworld reports. Vulgar words are suggested only after you type them by hand three times, while offensive words are never suggested or swiped.
Reuters tested phrases on an iPhone itself. United Ireland came out as United Iceland, and Sleepy Joe became Sleepy hope. Kauffman spotted the list in September 2026 when his swipe typing stuttered on certain phrases. Security engineer Matt Suiche separately recovered a copy that closely matched.
What Apple says
Apple told Reuters that users can still type any words or phrases and override predictive suggestions. It said the keyboard is designed to avoid suggesting words that may be offensive or inappropriate. Apple did not answer questions about the list’s size or why political phrases were flagged. Macworld’s Jason Cross sees the list as protection against bad press and lawsuits, but argues it goes too far and wants a user toggle.
Other languages, including Hindi
Apple keeps similar lists for 27 other languages and scripts. Chinese entries include June Fourth and Taiwan independence. Hindi entries include a 2014 BJP campaign slogan, a Pappu jibe at Rahul Gandhi and the term love jihad. Swipeblocked says its translations are approximate.
What this means for iPhone users
Avoiding offensive suggestions is a fair goal, but the lopsided pairs need an explanation Apple hasn’t given. Blocking a complaint like iMessage isn’t working is also hard to square with Apple’s stated reason. The workaround is simple, as the Swipeblocked project puts it:
Typing letter by letter always works. Nothing on the list stops you writing it.
You can check a phrase against the full English list, but be warned that it contains offensive and explicit terms. The code and data are on GitHub. For another iOS 27 change that caught users out, see our report on HDMI video stopping when you lock your iPhone.
Source: Swipeblocked, Reuters via Android Headlines, Macworld
