Codex App: Use native macOS spellcheck

Open 💬 6 comments Opened Feb 15, 2026 by rvanhorn

What variant of Codex are you using?

App

What feature would you like to see?

Codex Desktop App does not apply native macOS spellcheck in the main prompt input.

I have macOS spellcheck enabled system-wide, but Codex does not show misspelling underlines, suggestions, or correction behavior while typing prompts.

Obviously this is very low priority, but sometimes I just cannot spell. 🙂

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

6 Comments

dnery · 5 months ago

Even though low-priority, it would be really cool to have it. Codex is annoyingly good at adhering to instructions, which means that when I misspell a name, it uses the misspelled name in whatever the context is. 🤣

Adhering to instructions is good, just to be clear! Native spellchecking would be nice to have, though.

And a big thanks to the developers in this project. The codex app is awesome and probably the best harness for interacting with 5.3-* models at the moment.

brandon-barnes · 5 months ago

Hi team — confirming this is still an issue on my setup.

Repro

Click into the Codex prompt input box and type a clear misspelling like teh.
Expected: macOS spellcheck-as-you-type (red underline) and suggestion UI (as in TextEdit/Notes).
Actual: no underline and no spelling suggestion UI in the prompt input.

Request / desired behavior

Use macOS-native spellchecking for the prompt editor (e.g., NSSpellChecker / NSTextView or the equivalent for the app’s UI framework), ideally respecting the user’s macOS language settings.

Acceptance criteria

Spellcheck-as-you-type works in the prompt input (red underlines).
Context menu on misspelled words shows suggestions.
Works for both typed and pasted text in multi-line prompts.
Settings toggle: Spellcheck: On/Off (default On).
Optional: separate Grammar toggle.

Environment

Codex: 26.212.1823 (661)
macOS: 26.2 (25C56)

notOrrytrout · 3 months ago

Same here. It is a pain as it has the double space adds a period. That makes me feel like it has spellcheck only to find it did not check spelling.

BigUV · 2 months ago

Agree, much needed

MingxuanXie · 2 months ago

I switched to Claude Code desktop app because of this... which works well with the native spell check and suggestions.
As everyone is vibe coding, the 'coding' speed is limited to how quick human user can correctly write the prompt, so it's not low priority at all.

arkuksin · 1 month ago

Adding my support for this. Same setup on macOS: system-wide spellcheck enabled, but the Codex Desktop App prompt input shows no spelling underlines or suggestions. Beyond native spellcheck, my bigger pain point is that writing assistants like Grammarly cannot attach to the prompt input at all, so neither spelling nor grammar checking works while composing longer prompts. Native NSSpellChecker would already help a lot here.