Listen to or change how text appears in apps with Accessibility Reader on Mac
With Accessibility Reader on Mac, you can read or listen to text in a full-screen view, and customize fonts, layouts, and background colors. You can use Accessibility Reader with any app on your Mac. With Apple Intelligence, you can also reformat content for easier reading, summarize text, and translate text into one of your preferred languages. Accessibility Reader is also built into the Magnifier app so you can also customize text in your surroundings—like a whiteboard or screen. See Have your Mac zoom in on what’s around you.
Note: Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 is not available in all languages or regions. Usage limits may apply.*
Set up and use Accessibility Reader
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Click Read & Speak.
Turn on Accessibility Reader.
To customize Accessibility Reader, do any of the following:
Set up autoplay: Click
, then turn on Autoplay in Reader if you want Accessibility Reader to automatically read text out loud.
Automatically apply clean up formatting with Apple Intelligence: Click
Customize the keyboard shortcut: Click
To start using Accessibility Reader, do either of the following:
Use the Accessibility Reader keyboard shortcut: Open any app, scroll to an area you want to read, then enter the Accessibility Reader shortcut (Command-Escape, or your customized shortcut).
Use Accessibility Shortcuts: Open any app, scroll to an area you want to read, open Accessibility Shortcuts, then select Accessibility Reader.
Tip: You can also quickly launch Accessibility Reader from apps from the menu bar. Click Edit, click Speech, then click Open in Accessibility Reader.
Use Apple Intelligence in Accessibility Reader
With Apple Intelligence, Accessibility Reader can reformat content for easier reading, summarize long text, and translate text into one of your preferred languages.
Open any app on your Mac and turn on Accessibility Reader.
Do any of the following:
Summarize text: Click Summarize at the top of the content to show a summary. To hide it, click the summary again.
Translate text: Click
, then choose one of your preferred languages. To return to the untranslated text, click
Note: Translation is available for the languages in your Preferred Languages list. To add a language, see Change the language your Mac uses.
Reformat content: When you set up Accessibility Reader, you can turn on “Automatically apply formatting” to have Apple Intelligence format and structure content for readability and remove elements not relevant to content.
If you don’t have “Automatically apply formatting” turned on, you can also right-click the text, then click “Apply formatting” to clean up your content, or “Remove formatting” to see the original content.
Make text in apps easier to read
Open any app on your Mac and turn on Accessibility Reader.
After you’ve set up and opened Accessibility Reader, click
, then do any of the following:
Theme: Choose a color theme—such as Light or Dark.
Color: Choose a color for text or a background.
Font: Choose a font, font appearance, or font size.
High Legibility Characters: Turn on High Legibility Characters.
Note: This option is only available when using System Font.
Line: Choose
,
, or
to customize the space between lines.
Word: Choose
,
, or
to customize the space between words.
Character: Choose
,
, or
to customize the space between characters.
Readable Content Width: Choose
,
, or
to customize the text width.
Links: Turn Show Links on or off. When you turn on Show Links, you can customize the color.
Playback Highlighting: Turn Show Highlight on or off. When you turn on Show Highlight, you can customize the style or highlight color.
Reset to Default: Click Reset to Default to reset the settings you’ve selected.
Listen to spoken text in apps
Open any app on your Mac and turn on Accessibility Reader.
After you’ve set up and opened Accessibility Reader, do any of the following:
Listen to the text: Click
.
Pause the text: Click
.
Skip backward or forward: Click
or
.
Increase or decrease the speed: Click
, then select a speed.
Go to a specific time: Drag the slider left or right.