How do I remove a word from the custom dictionary I put it there by mistake

I put a word into the spell checkers custom dictionary by mistake how do I remove it

Settings, Language & input, Personal Dictionary.

I think.

Alternatively if you long press the suggested word you have the option to remove it.

don't have that on mine Umm long press is a phone thing this is desktop Joplin on Ubuntu Linux 20.10

The app uses the OS built-in dictionary I believe, so you would need to remove the word from there.

@grizzlysmit

I had this problem before and suggested that dictionary editing was added to Joplin as it is not as simple as just editing a text file.

On Windows the file is located at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\@joplin\app-desktop\Custom Dictionary.txt

IIRC there is an @joplin equivalent on Linux.

Edit: /home/<username>/.config/@joplin/app-desktop/Custom Dictionary.txt

However Custom Dictionary.txt is protected by an MD5 hash and if the hash does not match, the last known good backup file the spell-checker keeps (Custom Dictionary.txt.backup) is promoted to primary. In effect this replaces the edited dictionary with one that contains the word you do not want, unless the "wrong" word was the very last one you added.

The last line of the file looks something like:

checksum_v1 = b90fcb2494abf01cc226588851123e4f

You will have to delete that line and the wrong word. Then obtain the MD5 hash for the new text file ensuring that the cursor when you save the file is on an empty line immediately after the last word and that empty line is the end of the file.

Then edit the file again add the new MD5 hash value as:

checksum_v1 = <new checksum>

On that last line immediately after the last dictionary word.

If anyone has an easier method I would be glad to hear it!

1 Like

That did it, sort of, found ~/"snap/joplin-james-carroll/51/.config/@joplin/app-desktop/"Custom Dictionary.txt as my joplin is a snap (joplin is not in the repositories) had to mess about a bit never got the sum right but eventually it rolled it back to before the mistake and I started again from there.

No it isn't and your path is different to the one I stated above because you are using an unofficial snap package rather than the Joplin (AppImage) installer script for Linux.

Calculating the hash of the dictionary can be tricky as you have to select the exact amount of text & carriage retuns otherwise the hash value will not be correct. OK you were not able to successfully edit the file but I am glad you still managed to correct the problem.

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