Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text
You can change the voice your Mac uses to speak text in a window or in alert messages.
Choose a voice
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Accessibility in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click Spoken Content.
Click the “System voice” pop-up menu, then choose a voice.
Note: Voices are not available in all languages. See the Apple Support article Languages supported by VoiceOver.
To adjust how fast the voice speaks, drag the “Speaking rate” slider.
Click Play Sample to test the voice.
Adjust the voice
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Accessibility in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click Spoken Content.
Adjust any of the following:
How fast the voice speaks: Drag the “Speaking rate” slider.
How loud the voice speaks: Drag the “Speaking volume” slider.
How the voice pronounces certain words: Turn on Pronunciations, then click to define a custom pronunciation. You can dictate or spell out how you want the word to be spoken.
Click Play Sample to test the voice.
Add a new voice
You can add voices to the “System voice” pop-up menu. If you add a voice that’s not on your Mac, it’s automatically downloaded from Apple (you must be connected to the internet).
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Accessibility in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click Spoken Content.
Click the “System voice” pop-up menu, then choose Manage Voices.
Do any of the following:
Add a new voice: Click next to the voices you want to add.
Sample a voice: Click next to the name of the voice.
Find a voice for another language: Click the name of the language in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down on the left.)
To show more voices for the current language, such as for another country or region, you may need to scroll down on the right.
When you’re done adding voices, click OK.
Click the “System voice” pop-up menu, then choose a voice you added.
Voices that are downloaded aren’t available until the download is complete.
Delete a downloaded voice
You can delete a voice that you downloaded to your Mac.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Accessibility in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click Spoken Content.
Click the “System voice” pop-up menu, then choose Manage Voices.
Click next to the voice you want to delete.