SpeechBee

Guide

More natural text to speech voices on a Mac

The default voice your Mac reads with is clear but robotic over long stretches. You can download better ones for free, tune them, or use neural voices from an app. Here's how to get a voice you can listen to for an hour.

By the SpeechBee team, who make SpeechBee. Checked against Apple's Mac User Guide on 12 October 2026

On this page
  1. Download better system voices, free
  2. Tune the voice
  3. When to use neural voices
  4. SpeechBee's voices
  5. Questions
  6. Keep reading
  7. Sources

Download better system voices, free

  1. Open System Settings, click Accessibility, then Read & Speak.
  2. Click the info button next to System voice.
  3. Choose a language on the left, then click a voice name to download it. Play the sample first.
  4. When it's downloaded, choose it from the System voice menu.

You need an internet connection for the download. Apple notes that voices aren't available in every language, and new voices can't be used until the download finishes.

Tune the voice

  • Speed and volume: in the same info panel, adjust how fast or loud the voice speaks.
  • Pronunciations: turn on Pronunciations and add how a word should be said, by typing or dictating it. Useful for names and jargon.
  • Highlighting: following highlighted words makes long listening easier.

When to use neural voices

Apple's voices are clear. To our ears, modern neural voices sound more like a person, with more natural rhythm, which matters most when you listen for more than a few minutes. Reading apps offer them in two ways:

  • In the cloud: Speechify, ElevenReader and NaturalReader have large libraries of AI voices. Your text is sent to their servers.
  • On your Mac: SpeechBee, which we make, downloads neural voices once and runs them locally, so your text stays on your Mac and reading works offline.

SpeechBee's voices

Select text in any Mac app, press your reading key, and a neural voice reads it with a player for speed (half to double), skipping and pausing. You choose the voice engine:

EngineLanguagesDownloadMemory
KokoroEnglish and Mandarin ChineseAbout 170 MB for English, about 260 MB for Mandarin4 GB or more
PocketTTSEnglish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, SpanishAbout 400 MB for English, about 1.4 GB per other language8 GB or more
Supertonic 331 languages from one installAbout 170 MB16 GB or more
Voice to text
New message

Hi Maya, I'll send the revised proposal tomorrow morning.

SpeechBee's listening indicator on Mac
Hold your key, talk, let go. The text lands at the cursor.
Text to speech
Article

Most people read faster than they speak. SpeechBee reads the sentence you selected out loud, while you keep working.

SpeechBee's Read Aloud player on Mac
Select text, press your reading key, listen.

Neural voices, running on your Mac. Free for 7 days.

Voice to text and Read Aloud on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. After the week, $9 a month, $79 a year, or $99 once. Every plan has every feature.

Download for MacGet it for iPhone & iPad

Questions

How do I make my Mac's voice sound more natural?

Download a different system voice in System Settings, Accessibility, Read & Speak, then adjust its speed. For a more human sound, try a reading app with neural voices.

Are Mac text to speech voices free?

Yes. Apple's system voices are free to download.

Can my Mac read with AI voices offline?

Apple's downloaded voices work offline. SpeechBee's neural voices also run on your Mac without internet. Cloud AI voices need a connection.

Keep reading

Sources

All checked on 12 October 2026.