Change Spoken Content preferences for accessibility on Mac

On your Mac, use the Spoken Content pane of Accessibility preferences to customize 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 preferences, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Accessibility , then click Spoken Content.

Open the Spoken Content pane for me

Option	Description
System Voice	Choose a voice to speak text and alerts; click Play to hear a sample. See Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text.
Speaking Rate	Set the speed at which text is spoken.
Volume	Set the volume at which text is spoken. Setting the volume here doesn’t affect the volume set for your Mac in Sound System Preferences.
Speak announcements	Have your Mac announce and speak dialogs and other announcements. See Have your Mac speak announcements. To customize, click Options, 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 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 customize, click Options: Keyboard shortcut: 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 Never. Word color: Choose the color to use to highlight words as they’re spoken. Sentence color: Choose the color to use to highlight sentences as they’re spoken. Sentence style: Choose how to indicate sentences as they’re spoken (Underline or Background Color). Show controller: Choose when to show the controller (Automatically, Never, or Always).
Speak items under the pointer	Have your Mac identify items under the pointer. To customize, click Options, 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, select, or press using the keyboard. To customize, click Options: Echo characters: Your Mac speaks each character you type. Echo words: Your Mac speaks each word you type. Echo selection changes: Your Mac speaks each time you select something on the screen. Echo modifier keys: Your Mac speaks each modifier key you press, including the Caps Lock key.

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 off VoiceOver, press Option-Command-F5 (or if your Mac or Magic Keyboard has Touch ID, quickly press Touch ID three times), then deselect the Enable VoiceOver option.

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macOS User Guide

Change Spoken Content preferences for accessibility on Mac