Change Spoken Content settings for accessibility on Mac

On your Mac, use Spoken Content settings to customise the system voice, be notified when an alert or app needs your attention and set other options for content your Mac can speak aloud.

To change these settings, choose Apple menu > System Settings, click Accessibility in the sidebar, then click Spoken Content on the right. (You may need to scroll down.)

Open Spoken Content settings for me

Option	Description
System speech language	Choose the language you want your Mac to use to speak text and alerts, if different from the system language.
System voice	Choose a voice to speak text and alerts; click Play Sample to hear a sample. See Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text.
Speaking rate	Set the speed at which text is spoken.
Speaking volume	Set the volume at which text is spoken. Setting the volume here doesn’t affect the volume set for your Mac in Sound settings.
Speak announcements	Have your Mac announce and speak dialogues and other announcements. See Have your Mac speak announcements. To customise, click the Info button , then select a voice, the phrase you want to hear (such as the app name or “Attention!”) before an announcement is spoken and how long your Mac waits before it speaks. Click Play Sample to hear a sample.
Speak selection	Have your Mac speak selected text when you press the specified keyboard shortcut. See Have your Mac speak text that’s on the screen. To customise, click the Info button : Keyboard shortcuts: Press the key combination you want to use. For example, press the Option and Tab keys together to set the keyboard shortcut as Option+Tab. Highlight content: Choose to have spoken words, sentences or both highlighted. If you don’t want spoken content highlighted, choose None. Word colour: Choose the colour to use to highlight words as they’re spoken. Sentence colour: Choose the colour to use to highlight sentences as they’re spoken. Sentence style: Choose how to indicate sentences as they’re spoken (Underline or Background Colour). Show controller: Choose when to show the controller (Automatically, Never or Always). Detect languages: If you read text in multiple languages, “Speak selection” automatically switches between them. When this option is off, “Speak selection” reads all text using the language you set in Spoken Content settings.
Speak item under the pointer	Have your Mac identify items under the pointer. To customise, click the Info button , then choose when your Mac speaks the item (all the time or only when you use zoom), the level of detail (called verbosity) (High, Medium or Low), and how long to have your Mac wait before speaking.
Speak typing feedback	Have your Mac speak what you type or press using the keyboard. To customise, click the Info button : Echo characters: Your Mac speaks each character you type. Echo words: Your Mac speaks each word you type. Echo selection changes: When you use the arrow keys to move the insertion point forwards or backwards, your Mac speaks the character to the right or left of the insertion point. Echo modifier keys: Your Mac speaks each modifier key you press, including the Caps Lock key.

You can set keyboard shortcuts to quickly turn on or off options like “Speak selection”, “Speak item under the pointer” and “Speak typing feedback”. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click Keyboard in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down), click Keyboard Shortcuts on the right, then click Accessibility. See Use macOS keyboard shortcuts.

If your Mac is speaking even though you didn’t set options for it to do so, you may have inadvertently turned on VoiceOver, the built-in screen reader that describes aloud what appears on your screen. To quickly turn VoiceOver off, press Command-F5. If your Mac or Magic Keyboard has Touch ID, press and hold the Command key while you quickly press Touch ID three times.

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macOS User Guide

Change Spoken Content settings for accessibility on Mac