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[OS X 10.9.3 (Mavericks)] I've disabled smart quotes in the keyboard settings, but whenever I type ' or " in Messages (old name: iChat), they get converted to ‘ and “. How do I disable this default conversion?

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In addition to System Preferences, this feature can be turned on and off in each app via Edit > Substitutions. Make sure you check that setting as well.

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  • In addition to System Preferences I have no idea what this controls, TextEdit? :P – Cilan Jun 28 '14 at 21:32
  • Sorry, I can't understand your question. – Tom Gewecke Jun 29 '14 at 15:46
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    Don't worry, it was rhetoricle. Anyway, you cannot disable it on messages using system preferences. – Cilan Jun 29 '14 at 15:59
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    Right, but you CAN using the Substitutions menu, and it worked for me. Fantastic! It's suboptimal that I will have to toggle that for whenever I am texting my one friend with a dumb phone, but at least I can! – krs013 Jan 19 '15 at 7:18
  • No idea why the enable this by default... Thanks – Chad Scira Sep 18 '19 at 10:24
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In El Capitan (i.e. 10.11.1), I solved it by changing the Smart Quote settings:

  1. Open Keyboard in System Preferences
  2. Go to Text tab
  3. Change values for "for Double Quotes" and "for Single Quotes" from drop-down selection to use the simple quotes "" rather than ““

That's it. No need to disable or do any other workaround. Hope this helps, as I had this problem with Message app when posting code.

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    Thanks, but this question has been long solved (1 year 4 months). However, this seems like a good alt for el capitan users – Cilan Oct 29 '15 at 12:11
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This shell script disables smart quotes in all applications that currently have preferences files:

for d in $(defaults domains|tr -d ,);do
  osascript -e "app id \"$d\""&>/dev/null||continue
  defaults write $d SmartQuotes -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartDashes -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartLinks -bool false
  # defaults write $d SmartCopyPaste -bool false
  # defaults write $d TextReplacement -bool false
  # defaults write $d CheckSpellingWhileTyping -bool false
done

Uncomment the commented out lines to also disable other substitutions or spell checking.

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  • "all applications that currently have preferences files" - meaning only those where one already made substitution changes? – Bondt Mar 25 '15 at 14:19
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    i'm guessing this is a bash script? would be helpful if you mention how and where this code should be executed. it's potentially very useful but less so without context – billynoah Mar 9 '16 at 22:45
  • yes what @billynoah said 10x. This looks useful. How do I use it?! – Eric Nov 8 '19 at 16:00
  • Edit a plain text file called "diablesq.sh", and paste the text into it. Open a terminal window. Type "sh disablesq.sh" – Resuna Jan 3 '20 at 20:27
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Unfortunately none of the posted solutions worked for me. I've solved by changing my keyboard layout from:

  • U.S. International - PC

to:

  • U.S.
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    Worked for me as well. Thanks! – bullgare Sep 27 '19 at 8:20
  • The same for me! Thank you! – Timur Gilauri Mar 1 at 2:30
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Disable smart quotes:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

Disable smart dashes:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled -bool false

Disable smart quotes for TextEdit:

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit SmartQuotes -bool false

Disable smart dashes for TextEdit:

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit SmartDashes -bool false

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You will find this option in the Keyboard Preferences pane:

  • Open System Preferences.
  • Click on the Keyboard icon.
  • Select the Text tab.
  • Uncheck the Use smart quotes and dashes checkbox.

Note that this is almost a homework question. This is a keyboard/text related setting so it's fairly logical to find it under the Keyboard Preferences.

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    In my question I noted that I've tried this and it didn't work. What I had to do was go under Edit -> Substitutions and disable it there through the app itself. – Cilan Jun 28 '14 at 20:39

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