How to Convert Text-to-Speech on a MacBook

Key takeaways

• MacBook’s built-in text-to-speech helps users consume on-screen content hands-free, improving accessibility and reducing eye strain. Users can enable TTS on macOS with the “Option + Esc” shortcut, which reads selected or on-screen text aloud.
• The native Mac TTS tool is limited to basic functions like play, pause, stop, rate control, and sentence navigation. Advanced TTS platforms outperform macOS TTS by offering human-like voices, deep customization, multilingual support, and richer feature sets.
• Tools like Murf, NaturalReader, Amazon Polly, and Speechify support more languages, formats, and use cases, including professional voiceover creation.
• Murf stands out as the top choice for Mac due to its extensive voice library, advanced Gen-2 voice controls, collaboration features, and low-latency API.

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Students, content creators, and marketing professionals prefer the MacBook for its premium performance and user experience, leading to a higher quality of work.

Users can boost their productivity even further by enabling text-to-speech in Mac to read aloud on-screen content.

Additionally, the text-to-speech function enables folks with special needs to leverage digital technology by themselves.

In this article, let's look at how users can activate TTS on a MacBook and customize the relevant system preferences to generate audio from text for personalized use cases.

How to Enable Text-to-Speech on a MacBook?

To enable MacBook to speak selected text, simply press the key combination 'Option + Esc.' There is also an alternative option to customize the keyboard shortcut to use other features. For example, users can decide to display a controller on the screen that enables them to quickly alter the speech rate, resume, or stop speaking using the play button. Here are the steps to enable TTS on Mac:

Step 1: On MacBook, select Apple Menu > System Settings. Then, click on the 'Accessibility' option in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)

Step 2: Click on 'Spoken Content.'

Step 3: Next, turn on 'Speak selection.'

Step 4: Press the default key combination 'Option + Esc.' The TTS will now start speaking in its system voice. If a particular text is marked when pressing the key combination, Mac will speak the selected text in the default voice. Else, present text items in the current window are spoken. For instance, if a new window consists of Mail, an email message is read aloud. If no text items are available on the screen, one can hear a beep.

Step 5: Press the key combination 'Option + Esc' again to stop the text to speech feature. The default voice will now stop speaking.

Note: If users set the option to automatically show the controller, it appears on the screen when the Mac starts speaking. The controller can be used to move forwards or backward one sentence in the text.

Limitations of MacBook's TTS Capabilities

Although the built-in text-to-speech function on MacBook serves a decent purpose with a simple press of a key shortcut, the range of its functions is not adequate for various use cases.

Let's look at some of the benefits of choosing a TTS software over the TTS feature on Mac:

1. Human-like, Customizable Speech

Advanced TTS tools generate natural speech with clear intonation and pacing. You control tone, speed, and emphasis to match different use cases. This flexibility improves clarity and boosts listener engagement.

2. Wide Multilingual Support

Most dedicated TTS platforms support dozens of languages and regional accents. This breadth helps teams localize content quickly. They will simply need to upload the text files, choose the voice, select the language, and generate the audio.

3. Voice Cloning

Modern TTS solutions replicate a user’s voice with high accuracy. This feature creates consistent audio across training, product, and marketing materials. It also saves significant recording time for busy professionals, as they just need to produce a text file, and the platform will do the rest.

4. Supports Various File Formats

Leading text-to-speech solutions can convert content in various formats, such as a web page, a Microsoft Word document, and a PDF file, into engaging human-like speech. Users can select text that needs to be read aloud and get the audio output instantly.

Additionally, professionals can get the output in any file format, such as MP3, AAC, or WAV, streamlining creative workflows.

5. Real-Time API

APIs enable automatic audio generation inside products or internal systems. Teams trigger speech output instantly without manual uploads, especially in custom applications. Furthermore, these APIs can have a different key combination for deployment to match the user's preferences.

4 Top Substitutes for MacBook Text-to-Speech

1. Murf

Murf is a cloud-based TTS and voice-generation platform that turns written content into realistic, natural-sounding speech.

It offers a large library of AI voices — over 200 distinct and new voices supporting 20+ languages (and accents) — letting users choose the voice style, tone, pace, pitch, and pronunciation that best match their content.

Beyond simple speech synthesis, Murf's premium features include: voice cloning, emotional tone adjustment, fine-tuned pacing, emphasis, and even synchronizing voiceover with visuals and background music.

For developers and enterprises, Murf also offers API access — including a low-latency variant known as Murf Falcon — enabling scalable, real-time voice generation (for example, for voice agents, IVR systems, or apps) while maintaining high pronunciation accuracy and performance.

2. NaturalReader

NaturalReader is a versatile text-to-speech (TTS) platform that converts text — including documents, web pages, e-books, PDFs, even images — into natural-sounding spoken audio.

It offers a large library of over 200 AI voices spanning 50+ languages, with adjustable voice styles, speed, tone, and pronunciation to suit different needs.

It comes as a web app, mobile app (iOS & Android), and a browser extension — making it convenient across devices for students, professionals, or anyone wanting accessible, hands-free reading.

3. Amazon Polly

Amazon Polly is a cloud-based text-to-speech (TTS) service from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that converts written text into natural, human-like speech using deep-learning technology.

It offers a variety of voices — male and female — across dozens of languages and dialects, including high-quality neural voices (NTTS) and newer generative / long-form engines for more expressive, natural reader-like output.

Users can upload plain text or use SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) to fine-tune pronunciation, intonation, speed, pitch, and emphasis for more natural-sounding speech.

4. Speechify

Speechify is a popular AI-powered text-to-speech (TTS) and voice-assistant platform that turns documents, web pages, PDFs, emails, and even images into natural-sounding spoken audio.

It offers 200+ voices across 60+ languages, with customizable speech speed, pitch, and tone — and can read aloud at up to 4.5× normal reading speed.

Available via mobile apps, desktop, browser extension, and web interface, Speechify supports syncing across devices and offline listening.

How Mac Users Can Pick The Right TTS Tool

With so many options available, Mac users might get confused when making a selection. To speed up the process, you can evaluate each TTS solution based on the following parameters:

• Voice Quality and Customization: Assess how natural the voices sound and whether you can adjust tone, pacing, and emphasis.
• Language and Accent Availability: Check the tool’s multilingual library. Wide language support helps you repurpose content for global audiences without hiring additional voice talent.
• Integration and API Support: Look for real-time APIs or native Mac integrations. Strong integration capabilities streamline automation and reduce manual steps across your content pipeline.
• Export Formats and Compatibility: Ensure the platform supports formats like MP3 or WAV. These formats guarantee smooth use across editing tools, LMS platforms, or customer-facing applications.
• Pricing and Usage Limits: Review character limits, subscription tiers, and licensing. Transparent pricing helps you scale output without unexpected cost spikes.

Murf: The Best TTS Platform For Mac Users

Murf is a cloud-based AI voice platform that transforms text into realistic, natural-sounding voiceovers. It uses advanced neural models to generate speech that mirrors human intonation, pacing, and emotion — ideal for creators, marketers, and educators alike.

Here’s why Murf is especially suited for Mac workflows:

• Extensive Voice Library & Multilingual Support: Murf offers over 300 AI voices in 30 + languages and accents. This variety makes it easy to create localized content for global audiences.
• Deep Voice Customization: You can tweak pitch, speed, emphasis, pronunciation, pauses — even adjust emotional tone. With the latest “Gen 2” model, these settings deliver highly polished voiceovers.
• Versatile Export Options: Murf lets you export audio in formats like MP3, WAV, or FLAC — ready for videos, podcasts, or e-learning modules.
• Fast, Reliable TTS API for Developers: If you build apps, websites, or voice agents, Murf Falcon — Murf’s low-latency TTS API — delivers speech with industry-leading latency (~ 55 ms) worldwide.

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Ready to synthesize the highest quality of speech on your MacBook?

Sign up for Murf today and enjoy free ten voice generation minutes.