iPhones remember what words you've ever typed?

[smallwhite]

iPhones seem to remember what words you have typed in the past. Can we extract that information to compile a personal active vocabulary list?

[Speakeasy]

Filing a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request for all your call information, text messages, et cetera, might be quicker and simpler.

[zenmonkey]

iPhones seem to remember what words you have typed in the past. Can we extract that information to compile a personal active vocabulary list?

Short answer: No, you currently cannot.

Long technical answer (after a deep dive because I got interested in this for another project): I see three possible ways this might have been possible:

1) As an export function in the iOS core Apple implementation - they have not developed this and likely won't (see below). You can edit words from your typing shortcuts but can't export the QuickType database in the current iOS (12).

2) Through the iOS functions by developing a new app that would read the database. It is possible to use the autocorrect functions by implementing the UITextChecker and UILexicon objects and check if a word is learned or to get suggestions. But the documentation explicitly states that the lexicon cannot be read: "What you type in one app is not available to other apps." This type of security concern is also why 1) is likely to remain closed.
Some references:
https://nshipster.com/uitextchecker/
https://developer.apple.com/documentati ... extchecker

3) One of various hack: a) Rooting a phone, finding out where the data is written and then reading that area - that's theoretically possible but not worth the effort unless you work for a 3 letter agency. b) Doing a GDPR request, getting your data dump and then looking there to see if the data is kept - most likely not an easy process. c) break a backup and read the data... see a) and b)