5 Best Ways to Fix Mozilla Firefox Spell Checker Not Working in Windows 11

Mozilla Firefox is a popular web browser that comes with various features, one of which is the built-in spell checker. You can use it to detect and correct spelling mistakes in your document. But what if this feature stops working out of a sudden?

This can be a very serious issue, especially for those who want to avoid spelling mistakes in their document. Fortunately, it’s a common issue with the browser and you can easily resolve it. Below are the five best ways to fix the Mozilla Firefox spell checker not working in Windows 11.

1. Enable Spell Checker

To use the spell checker, you’ll need to first enable it in the Firefox settings. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use it to detect spelling mistakes. Follow these steps to enable it:

Step 1: Press the Windows key to open the Start Menu.

Step 2: Type Mozilla Firefox in the search bar and press Enter.

Step 3: Click the hamburger icon at the top-right corner and choose Settings from the context menu.

Step 4: In the General tab, check the ‘Check your spelling as you type’ box in the right pane.

If the option was already checked, uncheck and re-check it. Doing this will eliminate any temporary glitch that might be causing the issue.

If enabling the spell checker from the Firefox settings menu wasn’t helpful, use the Firefox Configuration Editor to enable it. It contains advanced system settings that are hidden from the general audience. To use Firefox Configuration Editor to enable spell checker in Firefox, follow these steps:

Step 1: Launch Firefox, type about:config in the address bar, and press Enter.

Step 2: Click the ‘Accept the Risk and Continue’ button.

Step 3: Type layout.spellcheckDefault in the search bar and press Enter.

Step 4: Click the Pen icon.

Step 5: Change the value to 1 and click the Check icon.

Next, restart Firefox and check if you face the issue.

2. Install Language and Dictionary Pack

Language and Dictionary pack are two of the most important elements for using the spell checker in Mozilla Firefox. The spell checker will fail to work if the required language and dictionary pack is not installed.

You can download the language and dictionary pack of your default language by following the below instruction:

Step 1: Launch Firefox, right-click in the text box, hover the cursor on Languages, and choose Add Dictionaries.

Step 2: Click on your language you want to add.

Step 3: Click the ‘Add to Firefox’ button in the new tab that crops up.

Step 4: Click the Add button in the prompt that appears.

Step 5: Open the dictionary link of your language.

Step 6: Click the Add to Firefox button in the new tab that crops up.

Step 6: Click Add.

3. Clear Cache Data

Another reason spell check is not working in Firefox is its corrupt cache data. Browsers stores cache data to offer a faster and smoother user experience. But when the cache data gets corrupted, it causes various browser issues, including the one at hand.

Fortunately, you can quickly troubleshoot such issues by clearing the cache data. Here’s how to clear Mozilla Firefox cache data:

Step 1: Open Mozilla Firefox, click the hamburger icon at the top-right corner and choose Settings.

Step 2: Choose Privacy & Security from the left sidebar, and click the Clear Data button under the ‘Cookies and Site Data’ section.

Step 3: Check the ‘Cached Web Content’ box and click the Clear button.

After clearing the cache, restart Firefox and check if the problem exists.

4. Remove Extensions

Firefox comes with a variety of extensions you can use to take your productivity to the next level. Most extensions work well, but some can do more harm than good. Installing such extensions can cause Firefox to malfunction.

If the spell checker stopped working in Firefox, one of the installed extensions is probably causing the issue. You’ll have to detect and remove that extension to fix the problem. Here’s how to do that:

Step 1: Open Firefox and click the Extension icon at the top-right side.

Step 2: Disable all the extensions.

Check if the problem is fixed. If yes, one of the extensions might be the culprit. To nail it down, start enabling each extension one by one until the problem appears again.

After you detect the problematic extension, click the three dots next to it and choose the Remove option.

5. Update Firefox

We can’t stress enough the importance of regularly updating browsers. New updates have the latest security patches and solve known issues.

So, to fix the spell checker in Firefox, download the latest Firefox update. You can do that by following these steps:

Step 1: Open Firefox, click the hamburger icon at the top-right corner and choose Help.

Step 2: Click on the About Firefox option.

Firefox will look for and download any available updates.

Fix Spell Checker in Firefox

Incorrect spelling in an important document is enough to ruin your impression in front of others. Fortunately, you can correct all the spelling mistakes using Firefox spell checker. However, if it stops working, check out the above methods to fix the Firefox spell checker not working in Windows 11.