How to Make Your Mac Read Text Aloud (and Dictate) in 2026

To make your Mac read text aloud, go to Apple menu > System Settings > Accessibility > Read & Speak and turn on Speak selection. Then select text in any app and press Option-Esc; press it again to stop. With nothing selected, your Mac reads the text in the current window. To talk text in instead, turn on Dictation under System Settings > Keyboard.

Listening to your own writing is the cheapest proofreader there is. A doubled word or a sentence that runs out of breath sounds wrong long before it looks wrong. macOS 27 has several built-in ways to read text out loud, from a one-key shortcut to a full reading view with a speed control, and Dictation covers the other direction. This guide walks through each one, how to get a voice that doesn't grate, the fixes for a shortcut that stays silent, and how to pair reading aloud with dictation so you can draft and check without looking at the screen much at all.

How to turn on Speak selection on a Mac

Speak selection is the Mac's main text-to-speech feature: it reads whatever you select when you press a shortcut. Apple's guide to having your Mac speak text gives these steps for macOS 27:

1. Click the Apple logo at the top left of the screen, then System Settings.
2. Click Accessibility, which sits low in the sidebar list.
3. Click Read & Speak.
4. Turn on Speak selection.

Older guides, and older Macs, call this pane Spoken Content, and before System Settings existed it lived in System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech. If a tutorial sends you looking for Spoken Content on macOS 27, Read & Speak is the same place.

How to read selected text out loud

1. Select the text you want to hear: a sentence, a paragraph, or the whole document with Command-A.
2. Press Option-Esc, the default Speak selection shortcut.
3. Press Option-Esc again to stop.

If no text is selected, Apple says your Mac speaks the available text in the current window. Many apps also have the same thing in a menu: choose Edit > Speech > Start Speaking, and Stop Speaking to end it. The menu is handy in apps where Option-Esc is already taken, and it's easy to forget it exists until you look for it.

This is the habit that stuck for me. Before I send a long proposal to a client, I select the body, press Option-Esc and listen with my eyes off the screen. My ear catches the "the the" and the missing "not" that my eyes skate over on the fourth read.

Change the shortcut, highlighting and controller

Click the Info button next to Speak selection to change how it behaves. Apple lists these options:

• Keyboard shortcut: press the keys you'd rather use instead of Option-Esc.
• Highlight content: highlight spoken words, sentences, both, or None.
• Word color and Sentence color: the highlight colors.
• Sentence style: an underline or a background color for the sentence being read.
• Show controller: show the on-screen Read & Speak controller Automatically, Never or Always.

Click OK when you're done. Word highlighting earns its keep for proofreading: you can see exactly where the voice is when something sounds off, so you know which line to fix. If you want a shortcut that switches the whole feature on or off, Apple puts one at System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Accessibility > Turn speak selection on or off.

How to change the voice and reading speed on a Mac

The voice your Mac reads with is the System voice in Read & Speak settings, and its speed and loudness sit behind the Info button next to it. Apple's voice guide gives the steps:

1. Go to Apple menu > System Settings > Accessibility > Read & Speak.
2. Pick a voice from the System voice menu.
3. Click the Info button next to System voice to change how fast or loud the voice speaks.
4. Click the Play button to hear a sample before you settle on it.

If the text you listen to is mostly in another language, set System speech language as well, since not every language has voices. Turn on Detect languages if your documents switch languages partway through, and your Mac changes voices as the text does.

Download a better voice

The voices already on your Mac are a starting point, not the full set. Apple's steps to get more:

1. In Read & Speak, click the Info button next to System voice.
2. Pick a language in the left column, then a voice name beside it. Scroll for other regions of the same language.
3. Click Play next to a voice to sample it.
4. Click the voice name, then Download if the button appears. You need an internet connection.
5. When it finishes, click Back, then Done, and choose the new voice from the System voice menu.

A downloaded voice isn't available until the download is complete, so give a large one a minute. To remove one you no longer want, click its name in the same list, swipe left with two fingers and click Delete.

For me, speed matters more than the voice. I keep my everyday voice at the default rate for proofreading, because a faster voice hides the stumbles I'm listening for, and only speed it up for reading I just want to get through.

Fix words your Mac says wrong

Text-to-speech voices struggle with surnames, brand names and acronyms. Read & Speak has a Pronunciations setting for exactly this: Apple's settings reference says it turns custom pronunciations on or off, and the Info button next to it is where you edit them. The default voice kept mangling the name of a client's company for me until I added it there, after which proofreading their documents stopped being distracting.

Accessibility Reader: a reading view that reads to you

Accessibility Reader opens the text from the app you're in in a clean reading view with play, pause and speed controls. It suits long reading better than Speak selection, because you can skip around and change the speed while it plays. Apple's Accessibility Reader guide gives these steps:

1. Go to Apple menu > System Settings > Accessibility > Read & Speak and turn on Accessibility Reader.
2. Optional: click the Info button and turn on Autoplay so it starts reading as soon as it opens.
3. In any app, scroll to the text you want, then press Command-Esc. You can also choose Edit > Speech > Open in Accessibility Reader from the menu bar.
4. Click Play to listen and Pause to stop. Rewind and Forward skip back and ahead.
5. Click the Speaking Rate button (it reads "One Times" at the default speed) to choose a faster or slower speed, or drag the slider to jump to another point.

Accessibility Reader also lets you change fonts, layout and background colors, and it tells you when it can't find any text in the window. That message is useful in itself: if Reader finds nothing, Speak selection probably won't either, most likely because the words are in an image or a part of the app that doesn't expose its text.

When a long policy document or a contract lands in my inbox, I open it in Accessibility Reader, set it a notch faster than normal and listen while I sort the rest of my email. I still read the parts that matter properly, but by then I know where they are.

Reading web pages aloud in Safari

Safari on the Mac has no separate read-aloud button, so use the features above on the page. For an article, first click the Page menu button in the Smart Search field and choose Show Reader, which Apple's Safari guide says appears when the page has an article Reader can show. Then press Option-Esc with nothing selected, or choose Edit > Speech > Start Speaking, and your Mac reads the article without the menus and captions around it.

Other ways your Mac can speak

Speak selection and Accessibility Reader cover reading documents. macOS has a few more speech features for narrower jobs, and it helps to know which is which before you switch something on by accident.

Speak item under the pointer, typing feedback and announcements

Both live in Read & Speak, according to Apple's settings reference. Speak item under the pointer identifies what's under the pointer, and its Info button sets when it speaks (all the time or only when you're using Zoom), how much it says (High, Medium or Low verbosity) and how long it waits first. Speak typing feedback speaks what you type or the keys you press, with separate switches for characters, words, selection changes and modifier keys. Speak announcements reads dialogs and alerts aloud, with a phrase of your choice before them and a delay you set.

Live Speech: type it and your Mac says it

Live Speech speaks what you type, for times when you can't or don't want to talk. Apple's Live Speech guide puts it at System Settings > Accessibility > Speech > Live Speech, a separate Speech section from Read & Speak. Turn it on, type in the Type to Speak field and click Speak or press Return. The Live Speech icon in your menu bar shows and hides its window. Phrases you use often can be saved, grouped in categories, so they're one click away. It uses the Read & Speak system voice unless you pick another in its Voice menu.

VoiceOver: the full screen reader

VoiceOver is a complete screen reader, not a read-this-paragraph tool. It speaks and navigates every part of the Mac, which is essential if you can't see the screen and confusing if you turned it on by mistake. Apple's VoiceOver guide lists the ways to switch it on or off: press Command-F5, hold Command and press Touch ID three times quickly on a Mac or keyboard with Touch ID, ask Siri, or go to System Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver. If you only need it to be quiet for a moment, press Control to pause its speech and press it again to resume.

Speak selection not working? What to check

A silent Option-Esc traces back to one of three things: the setting, the shortcut or the text itself. Go down this list from the top:

1. Make sure the Speak selection switch is turned on in System Settings > Accessibility > Read & Speak.
2. Check the shortcut under the Info button next to Speak selection. If you or another app changed it, Option-Esc won't fire.
3. Try Edit > Speech > Start Speaking from the app's menu bar. If that works and the shortcut doesn't, another app is probably using the same keys, so pick a new shortcut.
4. Test in a plain app such as TextEdit. If it reads there, the problem is the app you were in, not your settings.
5. Check the text is real text. Words inside a photo, a scanned PDF or some web players can't be read. Accessibility Reader will tell you if it finds no text.
6. Check the voice. A voice that's still downloading isn't available yet, so pick another from the System voice menu or wait for it to finish.
7. Check the volume. Speech plays through your current sound output, so a muted Mac or a forgotten pair of headphones means silence. The Info button next to System voice has the voice's own loudness too.

Dictation: how to talk text into your Mac

Dictation is the other half of speech on a Mac: it types what you say into any text field. Switch it on under System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation and click Enable. Apple's Dictation guide says to start it by pressing the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or Edit > Start Dictation, wait for the cursor to pulse or the tone, then speak. Press Escape to stop.

There's no time limit, though 30 seconds of silence ends a session. On Apple silicon Macs you can keep typing while it listens to fix a word without ending the session. The full setup, the spoken punctuation commands and the privacy settings are in the guide to dictating on a Mac, and if it won't listen at all, the Dictation fixes cover the usual causes.

Pair the two: dictate a draft, then hear it back

Dictation and Speak selection work well as a loop. Speaking gets a first draft out fast, and listening catches what speech recognition got wrong, because a misheard word sounds as odd read aloud as it looks on the page.

1. Put the cursor in the email or document and start Dictation.
2. Say the draft in full sentences, then press Escape.
3. Select everything you just said with Command-A, then press Option-Esc to hear it.
4. Fix what sounds wrong with the keyboard, and listen once more to anything you changed.

When I answer a long thread late in the afternoon, I dictate the answer in Mail and play it back before I send. Dictation has a habit of hearing "can" where I said "can't", and that's one mistake I really don't want a client to read.

If you dictate a lot, the built-in tool isn't your only choice; the comparison of dictation software for Mac covers apps that tidy up what you say as well.

Tips for listening to text on a Mac

• Proofread at normal speed. Faster voices smooth over the errors you're listening for.
• Listen away from the screen. If you read along, your eyes correct what your ears should be catching.
• Read the important line yourself. Numbers, dates and names deserve a look, not just a listen.
• Use headphones in shared spaces. A voice reading a contract across an open office tells everyone what's in it.
• Turn on word highlighting when you proofread, so you can find the line that sounded wrong.
• Add pronunciations once for the names you hear every week, and the voice stops tripping over them.