How to make your Mac read text aloud
Short answer: turn on Speak Selection, select some text, and press Option-Esc. It’s free and built into macOS. Here’s how, and what to do when it doesn’t work.
Turn on Speak Selection
Open the settings
Apple menu → System Settings → Accessibility → Read & Speak. On older versions of macOS it’s called Spoken Content.
Turn on Speak selection
The default shortcut is Option-Esc.
Select text and press Option-Esc
In any app: a web page, an email, a PDF. Press Option-Esc again to stop.
Pick a voice and speed
In the same pane, choose a system voice and set the speaking rate. Some voices download in higher quality.
No shortcut? Use the menu
Edit → Speech → Start Speaking
Many apps, including Safari, Notes, Pages and TextEdit, have it. Select text first, or it reads the whole document.
Or the Terminal
say "Hello there"speaks any text you give it. Handy in scripts.
If nothing happens
- Make sure text is actually selected. Some web apps draw text in a way you can’t select.
- Check the shortcut in Read & Speak. Another app may be using Option-Esc.
- Check the volume and the output device in the menu bar.
- Try Edit → Speech → Start Speaking instead. If that works, it’s the shortcut.
- Quit and reopen the app, then try again.
When an app is worth it
Speak Selection reads every word, in order. If you want the short version of a long email, more natural voices, or the words lit up as they’re read, a read-aloud app helps. This is ours: select, double-tap fn.
Raj 9:41
Went through the deck, and the flow works really well up to slide 7. Slide 9 says the same thing as slide 4, so I’d drop it. For 8 and 11, use last quarter’s actuals, not the projections. And can we move pricing before the demo? Shyam wants to end on the demo. Thanks, Raj
you hear
Raj likes the flow. Drop slide 9, use last quarter’s numbers on 8 and 11, and move pricing before the demo.
Or press and hold a line of Raj’s note to select it.
Other apps that read aloud
Speechify works across your phone and computer and can scan printed pages. ElevenReader runs on the web and phones, not as a Mac app. We compared them, with sources.
Questions
Can my Mac read a PDF aloud?
Yes. Open it in Preview, select the text and press Option-Esc, or use Edit → Speech → Start Speaking. For a scanned PDF, the words need to be selectable; Live Text often makes them so.
How do I stop it reading?
Press Option-Esc again, or choose Edit → Speech → Stop Speaking.
Is it free?
Yes. Speak Selection, the Edit menu and the say command are all part of macOS.
Does it work offline?
Yes. The built-in voices run on your Mac.
Can it read a web page?
Select the text you want and press Option-Esc. For a long article, open Reader view in Safari first so it skips the menus and ads.
Sources
Prices change; tell us at support@composer1.com if one is out of date.
Nothing listens
until you hold fn.
Hold it. That’s the only way the mic turns on.
- The microphone opens only while you talk or record a meeting.
- Your history stays on your Mac.
- What you send to be read aloud isn’t kept.
Free to start. Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later.