How to Use Apple Intelligence's Writing Tools to Spot Typos, Rewrite Your Emails

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Having trouble getting your thoughts down in an email? In need of a proofreader to check your prose for errors in spelling or grammar? Want a quick summary of a text message? You can get all this from a feature called Writing Tools, available through Apple Intelligence.

Writing Tools can analyze your words in Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, and other text-based apps and revise them in different styles. If you just need a good proofreader, the Proofread tool can check your prose for typos. And if you’ve received a message, you can ask Writing Tools to summarize it. You can also reformat text into a list or table. Now, here’s how Writing Tools work.

How to Set Up Apple Intelligence

Before you can use Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools, you'll need an iPhone 15 Pro and up running iOS 18.1 or an iPad with an M1 chip and above running iPadOS 18.1. On the PC end, you must have a Mac with at least an M1 chip running macOS Sequoia 15.1 or higher.

With iOS/iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2, however, Writing Tools offers a few new features, including the option to have ChatGPT help you compose text and revise existing content.

To update your iPhone or iPad, head to Settings > General > Software Update and allow the latest version to download and install. On a Mac, go to System Settings > General > Software Update and click the button to install the latest update.

After the update has been installed, you’ll then need to set up Apple Intelligence. On your device, head to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri turn on the switch for Apple Intelligence.

Proofread Text

Let’s say you’ve written an email and need a good proofreader to check for typos and autocorrect fails. Open the file and select the text that you want to proofread. On an iPhone or iPad, press down on the text and drag until you select the section that needs editing. On the horizonal menu, tap the icon for Writing Tools and select Proofread or simply swipe to the right on the menu and tap Proofread.

On a Mac, use your mouse or trackpad to select the text. Right-click on the text, move to Writing Tools on the pop-up menu, and click Proofread. The Proofread tool then scans the text. In response, the tool shows you how many changes it made.

Tap the down arrow to review each change one by one. You can hit the down arrow again to accept the change or choose Use Original to stick with your original words. Tap Original to view the text without the changes and select it again to see the changes. Choose Revert to remove the changes and go back to the original text. Once you finish the review, tap Done and the revised version replaces the original.

Rewrite Text

Next, maybe you’ve written a note or document and need help revising it. On an iPhone or iPad, select the text you want to fine-tune, tap the Writing Tools icon on the menu or just select Rewrite. On a Mac, right-click on the selected text, move to Writing Tools, and then click Rewrite. If you want to rewrite the entire area of text, you don’t need to select it. Simply select the Writing Tools icon or option and then select Rewrite.

The tool scans and analyzes the text and then rewrites it. If you don't like the changes, hit Rewrite to give the tool another shot at revising your words. You can select Rewrite multiple times to generate additional versions of the text. Tap one of the arrow keys to switch between the different versions. If you’re still unhappy with the revisions, select Revert to go back to your original text. Otherwise, tap Done and the original text is replaced with the revised one.

Instead of asking for a general rewrite, you can steer the tool to revise the text using a specific tone, similar to Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini. To do this, select the text and choose Writing Tools from the menu. At this point, you can also trigger Writing Tools from the area just above the keyboard. Select the colored circle all the way to the right, and the Writing Tools screen appears. Note that you can also directly choose Proofread or Rewrite from this area.

The Writing Tools screen offers three different tones: Friendly, Professional, and Concise. Choose the tone you want to try, and your text is rewritten in that manner. Choose Revert to bring the text back to its original state. You can then try another tone to see how that makes the text sound. Once you find the tone you like best, click Done to replace the original text.

Summarize Text

Apple’s Writing Tools can also summarize the key points of an email, text message, note, or web page, just the way Adobe's AI assistant handles PDFs. To try it, select the text you want to use. Choose Writing Tools from the menu and then hit Summary. In return, the tool summarizes the content in a concise format. To instead see a summarized list, pick Key Points at the Writing Tools screen. The tool then displays the key points of the content in a bullet-point layout.

Format Text as a List or Table

You can reformat any text to display it as a list or table. This works best with a text document that contains sortable information. To try this, select the text, choose Writing Tools from the menu, and then choose List. The tool then reformats the text into a bulleted list. Alternatively, choose Table to reformat the text into a table with multiple rows and columns.

Use ChatGPT

With iOS/iPadOS 18.2 or higher and macOS Sequoia 15.2 or higher, you’re able to add access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to your device. Once this is in place, you can turn to ChatGPT to compose your original text and make any changes to existing text.

To try this, make sure you’ve already set up ChatGPT on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Open a blank email, message, or document. Tap the menu option for Writing Tools and then select Compose at the bottom of the screen. Describe the type of message or document you want to write. In response, ChatGPT generates the content. Tap Rewrite to have the content rewritten. Tap Revert to return to the original version. Tap any suggestion to incorporate it. Otherwise, tap Done to add the content.

You can also call on ChatGPT to revise existing text. Select the text you want refined. Choose Writing Tools from the menu. Tap the field for Describe your change, type or speak the revisions you want, and then tap the arrow key to submit them. To add those changes to your message or document, tap Rewrite. After the text is revised, tap Done.