---
title: "Natural-sounding text to speech voices on a Mac: how to get them"
description: "How to make your Mac's text to speech sound more human: download better system voices in Read & Speak, adjust rate and pronunciation, and when neural voices in reading apps are worth it."
url: "https://speechbee.app/guides/natural-text-to-speech-voices-mac"
---

# 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.

> ### The short version
>
> 1. Open **System Settings**, **Accessibility**, **Read & Speak**.
> 2. Click the info button next to **System voice**, choose your language, and download voices.
> 3. Pick the one you like from **System voice**, then adjust its speed.

## 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:

| Engine | Languages | Download | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kokoro | English and Mandarin Chinese | About 170 MB for English, about 260 MB for Mandarin | 4 GB or more |
| PocketTTS | English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish | About 400 MB for English, about 1.4 GB per other language | 8 GB or more |
| Supertonic 3 | 31 languages from one install | About 170 MB | 16 GB or more |

## 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

- [How to make your Mac read text aloud](https://speechbee.app/guides/text-to-speech-on-mac)
- [The best text to speech apps for Mac](https://speechbee.app/compare/best-text-to-speech-app-mac)
- [Online text to speech vs an app on your Mac](https://speechbee.app/guides/online-text-to-speech-vs-app)

## More on reading aloud

- [Every read-aloud guide and comparison](https://speechbee.app/guides/read-text-aloud)
- [Proofread by listening](https://speechbee.app/guides/proofread-by-listening-mac)
- [Read aloud in Word on Mac](https://speechbee.app/guides/read-aloud-word-mac)
- [Text to audio file on Mac](https://speechbee.app/guides/text-to-speech-mp3-mac)
- [Read text from an image](https://speechbee.app/guides/read-text-from-image-mac)
- [Type to speak on Mac](https://speechbee.app/guides/type-to-speak-mac)
- [Every dictation guide and comparison](https://speechbee.app/guides/voice-typing-mac)

## Sources

All checked on 12 October 2026.

- [Apple: Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-the-voice-your-mac-uses-to-speak-text-mchlp2290/mac)
- [Apple: Have your Mac speak text that's on the screen](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/have-your-mac-speak-text-thats-on-the-screen-mh27448/mac)
- SpeechBee facts from our [homepage](https://speechbee.app/) and the SpeechBee app's reading settings