Marcus Rowe

Posted on May 8 • Originally published at techsifted.com

Grammarly Not Working? 7 Fixes for the Most Common Issues (2026)

#grammarly #writingtools #browserextensions #troubleshooting

Grammarly is one of those tools that gets completely invisible when it's working and extremely annoying when it's not. You don't notice it underlining errors and suggesting fixes until the underlining stops.

I've used Grammarly — and had it break on me — for years. Ran it through four different content team workflows. Here's what actually goes wrong and how to fix it.

TL;DR: Most Grammarly problems trace to three things: the browser extension got silently disabled, Google Docs had an update that broke Grammarly's overlay, or your session token is stale and Grammarly thinks you're not logged in. Start by removing and reinstalling the extension, then sign out and back in.

Fix 1: The Extension Got Silently Disabled

This is the #1 Grammarly issue, by a significant margin.

Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all have the ability to disable extensions without telling you — after a browser update, after a permissions change, or sometimes after Chrome detects an extension conflict. Grammarly gets hit by this more than most extensions because it injects into a lot of pages and touches DOM elements aggressively.

Check first. In Chrome: go to chrome://extensions. Find Grammarly. Is the toggle blue (enabled) or gray (disabled)? If it's gray — that's your problem. Toggle it on, refresh the page you were on, done.

If it's enabled but still not working. This is where it gets slightly annoying. Chrome sometimes reports an extension as enabled when its permissions have quietly been revoked. The fix:

Click the three dots next to Grammarly in the extensions list
Select "Remove"
Go to the Chrome Web Store and reinstall
When Chrome asks for permissions during install, make sure you accept them

After reinstall, you'll need to log back into Grammarly in the extension popup (click the G icon and sign in).

This reinstall-to-restore-permissions issue is a Chrome quirk that affects a lot of extensions, not just Grammarly. Worth doing every few months just as maintenance.

Fix 2: Grammarly Stopped Working in Google Docs

This one has a specific fix that most troubleshooting guides get wrong.

Grammarly's Google Docs integration isn't native. Grammarly injects a JavaScript overlay into the Docs page — basically a floating layer that sits on top of the text. Google Docs updates, which roll out silently and constantly, sometimes change the page structure in ways that break Grammarly's overlay without breaking anything else.

The symptom: you open a Google Doc, and the small G icon that normally appears in the bottom-right corner of the document isn't there.

What actually fixes it:

Step 1: Disable and re-enable the Grammarly extension. Don't reinstall — just toggle it off in chrome://extensions, wait 5 seconds, toggle it back on.

Step 2: Hard-refresh the Google Docs tab. Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac. Regular refresh (Ctrl+R) won't clear the cached page scripts. Hard refresh does.

Step 3: If the icon appears but disappears on next load, Grammarly needs an update. Check chrome://extensions — if there's no "Update" button, click the developer mode toggle in the top right, then click "Update all extensions."

What doesn't work: Clearing your full browser cache. Everyone recommends this. It rarely helps with the Docs-specific issue because the problem is usually a JavaScript conflict, not a caching problem.

One limitation to know about: Grammarly in Google Docs doesn't catch everything it catches in standard text fields. The overlay approach has inherent limitations. For full Grammarly functionality on long-form documents, copy to Grammarly's own editor at app.grammarly.com, then paste back.

Fix 3: Grammarly Not Working in Gmail or Outlook Web

Different platform, different cause.

Gmail and Outlook web both use custom rich-text editors that don't behave like standard <textarea> fields. Grammarly has to do extra work to inject into these, and that injection breaks more often.

Gmail fix:

The Gmail compose window uses a contenteditable div — Grammarly supports this, but it can break if you've got certain other extensions running (Boomerang, Mixmax, HubSpot Sales, or any extension that also modifies the compose window). These extensions add their own DOM modifications that sometimes conflict with Grammarly's injection.

Try composing an email in a separate window (click the diagonal expand arrow in the compose box). The separate window uses a slightly different DOM structure and Grammarly often works there even when it's broken in the inline compose box.

Outlook web fix:

Grammarly and Outlook web have a historically rocky relationship. Outlook's editor is different from Gmail's, and Microsoft changes it more aggressively. If Grammarly stopped working in Outlook after a Microsoft update, check the Grammarly browser extension changelog — they usually push a compatibility fix within a week or two.

In the meantime, draft in Word Online (integrated with Outlook) or in Grammarly's native editor, then paste in.

For both: Check that Grammarly is set to "Active on this site" for mail.google.com and outlook.live.com. Click the G icon in your toolbar — it should show a green check, not "Grammarly is off for this site." If it's off, click "Turn Grammarly on."

Fix 4: No Suggestions Showing Up (Even When Extension Is Active)

Grammarly is enabled, the G icon shows up, but nothing's being flagged. No underlines, no suggestions, nothing.

First, rule out the obvious: is the document actually clean? Grammarly's suggestions have gotten more accurate over the years and it genuinely might not be finding anything. Paste something with an obvious error and see if it catches it.

If it doesn't catch a clear error:

Check suggestion settings. Open Grammarly's extension popup (the G icon). Click "Open Grammarly." In the right panel, check which suggestion categories are enabled. Grammarly Premium users can customize which error types surface — if "Correctness" is the only category enabled, you won't see style or clarity suggestions.

Check your goals. In the Grammarly editor (app.grammarly.com), you can set goals for document intent, audience, and style. These influence what Grammarly flags. A document set to "Casual, Informal" intent will get different suggestions than one set to "Academic, Formal."

Language settings. Grammarly supports American English, British English, Australian English, and Canadian English. If your language setting doesn't match what you're writing, you'll see fewer suggestions or wrong ones. Check Settings > Language in the Grammarly dashboard.

Try the native editor. Paste your document into app.grammarly.com. If suggestions appear there but not in your browser extension, it's a browser-side issue. If they don't appear there either, it's an account or document settings issue.

Fix 5: Grammarly Premium Features Missing or Not Working

You're paying $12-30/month and the Premium stuff isn't showing up. Frustrating.

The most common cause: your session didn't sync properly after upgrading.

Sign out of Grammarly on every device and browser. Wait two minutes. Sign back in on one browser. Check whether Premium features — plagiarism checker, full tone detection, style guide suggestions — are available.

If they are, you've confirmed it was a sync issue. Sign in on your other devices one at a time.

If you upgraded but used a different account: Grammarly Premium is tied to the specific email you purchased with. If you have two accounts (one from work, one personal), make sure you're logged into the one that has the active subscription. Go to account.grammarly.com and check which email the subscription is under.

Plagiarism checker specifically not working: The plagiarism checker requires an internet connection and sometimes has its own service issues separate from the main Grammarly service. Check status.grammarly.com. If the plagiarism checker shows as degraded, it's a service-side issue — wait it out.

Business plan features: If you're on Grammarly Business and team features aren't working (style guides, snippets, brand tones), check with your account admin. Business features are managed at the team level — individual users can't enable them without admin access.

Fix 6: Grammarly Desktop App Not Opening or Crashing

The Grammarly desktop app provides integration with Microsoft Word and Outlook desktop. If it won't open or keeps crashing, it's a different problem from the browser extension — different codebase, different failure modes.

Windows:

Check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc). Is Grammarly running in the background processes? If there's a Grammarly process that's running but the app isn't visible, kill the process and try launching again.

If that doesn't help: Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a Program. Remove Grammarly for Windows entirely. Then go to grammarly.com/download and install a fresh copy. During reinstall, run the installer as Administrator (right-click > Run as administrator) — permission issues are a common reason the app won't launch.

Mac:

Check Activity Monitor. Quit any Grammarly processes. Drag the Grammarly app from Applications to Trash, empty the Trash, then reinstall. On newer Macs with Apple Silicon, also check System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility and make sure Grammarly has accessibility permission checked — without it, the Word integration won't work.

Microsoft Word specifically: The Grammarly for Word add-in loads through Word's COM add-ins system. Go to File > Options > Add-ins > Manage: COM Add-ins > Go, and check whether Grammarly is listed and enabled. If it's listed as "load behavior: not loaded," click it and enable it. If it keeps deactivating, Word may be crashing on load and automatically disabling Grammarly as a precaution — check the Windows Event Viewer for Grammarly-related crash logs.

Fix 7: Grammarly Conflicting with Other Extensions or Apps

Grammarly modifies DOM elements across every page it's active on. So do a lot of other extensions. When two extensions try to modify the same element at the same time, you get weird results — broken Grammarly UI, missing suggestions, or complete silence from the G icon.

Common conflicts:

LanguageTool — another grammar checker. Running two grammar checkers simultaneously is a recipe for broken suggestions from both. Pick one.
Hemingway App browser extension — same category of conflict
Honey and similar shopping extensions — sometimes interfere on checkout pages specifically
Dark mode extensions (Dark Reader, Night Eye) — can break Grammarly's visual overlay on some sites
Password managers with form-fill — occasionally conflict with Grammarly's text monitoring on login forms (though this is less common)

Diagnosis: Disable all extensions except Grammarly. Test. If Grammarly works, re-enable extensions one at a time until you find the conflict.

If you need both Grammarly and the conflicting extension: Check whether both have a "site-specific disable" option. You can usually disable one extension on specific pages while keeping it active elsewhere. That way you don't have to choose globally — just configure which sites each extension covers.

Grammarly Still Broken?

If you've worked through all of the above:

Check status.grammarly.com. Grammarly has had service outages that affect suggestions, the editor, and (separately) the plagiarism checker. If there's an active incident, you're waiting on them.

Contact Grammarly support. support.grammarly.com has a chat widget that's fairly responsive. Have your browser version, OS version, and a description of what you've tried ready — it speeds up the conversation significantly.

Temporary workaround: Grammarly's web editor at app.grammarly.com works independently of the browser extension. If the extension is broken and you need to check something now, paste it into the editor. It's slightly less convenient but catches the same errors.

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