Windows profanity filter finally gets a ******* off switch

No more asterisks. Voice typing now reflects the true spirit of your rage

Customer feedback wins – Microsoft is adding a toggle to turn off the Windows 11 profanity filter.

The operating system has included voice typing as a feature for a while. However, it was a bit of a prude when it came to swearing, masking the offending words with asterisks.

The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build to hit the Beta Channel – build 26120.3941 – adds a toggle to allow more colorful language to be transcribed. No longer will a set of asterisks hide users' reactions if they accidentally spill a beverage while speaking. Instead, the OS will reflect the true feelings of its customers. Assuming, of course, that voice typing is enabled and the profanity filter is turned off.

"We're excited to address the top customer feedback for voice typing by starting to roll out a new setting that lets you control the profanity filter," Microsoft said.

Jen Gentleman, a Principal Technical Program Manager at Microsoft, highlighted the change in a post on Bluesky and noted that she had previously worked on testing profanity filtering with dictation on Windows Phone.

While Gentleman is more likely to be found dispensing Windows keyboard shortcut tips on social media these days, we can imagine the challenge:

"Where are all the ******* apps in the ******* app store?"

"****, this ******* phone is a ******* piece of ****."

And, of course, "Steve Jobs is a ******* ****."

The option to put the profanity back into text might prove useful – or not – considering how Microsoft's patches and updates have gone recently.

The rest of the new features in the update were predictably Copilot+ PC-heavy, with updates to the Click to Do preview to allow users to configure the shortcut button on supported pens. Microsoft also fixed an issue that caused images used with Click to Do image actions to be stuck in the PC's temp folder.

Also on Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft has tweaked "Improved Windows Search" so that it only shows keyword matches within the text of cloud files (rather than photos) for users signed into OneDrive with a work or school account.

Insiders wanting the new features first will need to ensure they have the toggle to get them turned on in Windows Update, and, as ever, there's no guarantee that what is in the beta channel will make it to production.

Which, in the case of the profanity filter toggle, would be a ******* shame. ®