iOS 27 over punctuation when it's not supposed to punctuate at all

I've figured it out, took me a while but this should stop the dictation automatic punctuation issues.

• • Go to Settings
  • In the search bar type Verbosity
  • Select "Verbosity Accessibility -> VoiceOver
  • Tap Punctuation
  • Tap Active Punctuation Group
  • Select None

That worked for me, no more annoying random commas during dictation. It will continue to take voice commands so if you say "Comma" (or other punctuation) then it will insert it, but not randomly anymore!

Hi there

Please try this

While you toggled Auto-Punctuation off, a secondary culprit called Smart Punctuation often forces commas back into the text by trying to automatically structure clauses. 

• Go to Settings > General > Keyboard.
• Scroll down and turn off Smart Punctuation.

Veelala wrote:

This is so horrible, I hate when they take away our customization. Are they doing this because they want to be able to train their AI? Forcing us to deal with the horrible punctuation? Also many of us don't like using that much punctuation in a text. Sometimes we don't like ending text with any punctuation, let us choose!

You didn't read the posts in this thread. Had you read it, you might have seen that someone figured out what setting controls this, but here is what worked for them and then another user commented it fixed it for them:

• Go to Settings
• In the search bar type Verbosity
• Select "Verbosity Accessibility -> VoiceOver
• Tap Punctuation
• Tap Active Punctuation Group
• Select None

As you can see, no one took anything away from you and yes, you can choose. Read a thread through next time and you wouldn't have had to express frustration. Instead, you could have commented to the user who found what setting controls this, that you appreciated them.

I’ve had the same irritating experience because I almost exclusively use talk to text. Have only tried for a short time but the catch22 workaround for now that may be the trick is just turning Siri off altogether. I tried deleting the Siri dictation history first but that still didn’t work. With Siri off the commas are still being inserted but done so correctly. Not getting the random periods anymore.

The excessive punctuation thing was driving me absolutely crazy. This is gonna sound really random but I wasn't getting notifications on my Outlook email. After I changed the notification settings for Outlook it has made a huge difference with the punctuation! I really hope this helps someone.

I have the exact same issue it started with iOS 27 it's so annoying. I pretty much exclusively use dictation on my phone, but now it's practically unusable, because it adds a comma every other word, it seems.

I wrote the above with dictation to illustrate. And yes I have smart punctuation turned off too it does nothing.

A bit of additional information, I cannot remember which macOS it was, but this also happened when one of the new Mac operating systems dropped. The auto punctuation toggle setting was hidden accidentally.

The workaround that people discovered was that if you added an additional language, the toggle would reappear. Then you could go back and remove the additional language, and the toggle was still there.

This seems to be a similar screwup where something they did hid the same setting on iOS, but there doesn’t seem to be a workaround this time that causes it to reappear.

If you have mobility issues and depend on dictation, your phone has become completely unusable.

Same issues here on an iPhone 18 Pro, iOS 27.2: I'm misunderstood on a word or two in the majority of dictations - accuracy was much higher on my iPhone 14, and I'm a native English speaker who talks for a living (sales). Plus aggressive auto-punctuation with no Auto-Punctuation toggle in Keyboard settings, and an extra word ("yes"/"yeah") added about 25% of the time when I tap the mic to stop dictation. Reported to Apple via iPhone Feedback in September and October.

It IS toggled off. And any time I'm using voice to text I get random periods inserted and

queation marks and commas that I don't want. I LITERALLY had to manually remove several of them (periods specifically) from this post I'm writing right now here.

I’m having the same issue and it drives me insane because I use dictation most of the time. I have tried everything people have said above this comment and nothing has worked. I turned Siri off. I added a language. I don’t have Outlook on my phone. Hoping to get an update here when one is available because this is infuriating.

I just updated my phone yesterday.. This thread was made a month ago and there is still no fix?!?! It's making me absolutely insane adding the periods and having to go back and remove them in every text why isn't this fixed yet?!

That absolutely does not work. It has absolutely no effect on dictation. it is not a fix, and you should remove this comment, and Apple should remove it from their website too, because it is a lie. This is driving me to madness, every single time I speak messages into my phone, to manually go back and remove all of the commas and periods that are inserted against my will, and not only that, often completely erroneously!

I completely feel your pain because the comma above placed after 'unusable' is grammatically incorrect. There is a subordinating conjunction just after the comma in the middle of that compound-complex sentence, and that is flat out wrong. Nice work, Predictive Punctuation.

I cannot, for the life of me, get my completely updated iPhone 13 to stop placing periods. after. every. word. while. I. am. dictating. Sometimes they stay; sometimes they disappear. It is all random. I have tried every suggestion that I can find online to no avail.

Since I rely on dictation everyday while at work, my frustration level grows exponentially Mon-Fri.

This is so horrible, I hate when they take away our customization. Are they doing this because they want to be able to train their AI? Forcing us to deal with the horrible punctuation? Also many of us don't like using that much punctuation in a text. Sometimes we don't like ending text with any punctuation, let us choose!

Veelala wrote:

This is so horrible, I hate when they take away our customization. Are they doing this because they want to be able to train their AI? Forcing us to deal with the horrible punctuation? Also many of us don't like using that much punctuation in a text. Sometimes we don't like ending text with any punctuation, let us choose!

No one here took away anything. Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can let them know your thoughts here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

THANK YOU so much for posting this. The random punctuation, both commas and periods, was killing me. I love to use dictation and often pause mid-sentence to gather my thoughts. The dictation output looked like I was having a stroke at my keyboard. Really appreciate you posting this!

I tried that in my settings and the annoying, overly aggressive punctuation is still happening. This is honestly one of the most annoying things of any iOS I've ever experienced. This wasn't an issue in iOS 26 and all of a sudden it is in 27.

Btw I used dictation to write this out, and as you can see, it was still inserting plenty of punctuation marks.

I'm having the same issue. I turned off smart punctuation and I don't have a toggle switch for auto punctuation. It's driving me insane.

Changing smart punctuation for the keyboard doesn't work. It has no effect on dictation.

Yep same for me. Very frustrating as I now have to edit my messages to delete random punctuation that makes no sense with how I speak

People chiming and telling us how to fix when there is no fix for it. Whoopee Siri has half a brain now but it feels like something else has to be sacrificed.

Driving me nuts as well. Just give us the toggle back!

This does not solve it

For me, it's adding periods no matter what. Even if I don't pause my speech.

I checked it for me—it’s already set to “none“ and I still have the same ongoing problem. 😵

I wish I could upvote this multiple times! I tried so many ways to solve this issue, but I never would’ve gotten there without your advice.

I have followed these steps, but I am still having the same issue. Is there something else that I am doing wrong?

My active punctuation is already set to none and smart punctuation off too so must be something else!