Questions

How to make a Mac read text aloud

InputConfig is completely free on the Mac App Store. You don't have to make an account, there are no subscriptions, and nothing is locked. Optimized for Apple silicon.

Every Mac can read text aloud with no extra app. Switch on Speak selection in System Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content, select some text, and press Option Esc. Press Option Esc again to stop. If that key combination is hard for you, the same feature can sit on a mouse button, a controller, a switch, or a knock on a MacBook.

Steps

1. Switch on Speak selection in System Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content.
2. Select text.
3. Press Option Esc, or a button bound to Speak Selection in InputConfig.

Turn on Speak selection

1. Open System Settings, then Accessibility, then Spoken Content.
2. Switch on Speak selection.
3. Choose a System voice and a Speaking rate on the same page. Better voices can be downloaded from the voice menu.

• You: Select text in any app and press Option Esc.
• macOS: Reads the selection aloud in the voice you chose.
• Check: Press Option Esc again and it stops.

You can change the shortcut with the info button next to Speak selection on the same page.

If Force Quit opens instead

Force Quit is Command Option Esc. Speak selection is Option Esc on its own, without Command. If a Force Quit window opens instead of speech, Command was held.

Read aloud from a button instead of the keyboard

Option Esc needs two keys at once in the top corner of the keyboard. For one hand, a tremor, or no keyboard at all, InputConfig can press it for you:

1. Install InputConfig from the Mac App Store and allow Accessibility access.
2. Add a row, press Scan, and press the button: a mouse side button, a controller button, a switch, a MIDI pad, or a key nothing uses.
3. Set the output to System Function, then Accessibility, Speak Selection.
4. Activate the preset.

• You: Select text and press the button.
• InputConfig: Presses Option Esc for you.
• Check: The Mac reads the text. Press the button again to stop.

To hear a whole page or document without selecting by hand, make the row a macro: Command A, then Speak Selection.

If nothing is spoken

Climb this ladder, smallest step first:

1. Check the switch. Speak selection must be on in Spoken Content.
2. Check the selection. Some text must be selected, and it must be real text: a scanned PDF or a picture of text has nothing to select.
3. Check the sound. The Mac's volume and output device.
4. Check the shortcut. InputConfig's Speak Selection output always sends Option Esc. If you changed the macOS shortcut, change it back or bind your new combination as a key output instead.

Tell it apart from spoken feedback and VoiceOver

• Spoken feedback. InputConfig's spoken feedback says a phrase you choose when a button fires, useful for learning a layout by ear. That is InputConfig speaking, not the Mac reading your text.
• VoiceOver. The Mac's screen reader describes everything on screen, and the VoiceOver navigation layout drives it from a controller.

The short version

• Turn it on. Go to System Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content, and switch on Speak selection.
• Use it. Select text, press Option Esc, and press it again to stop.
• Make it one press. Put Speak Selection on any button with InputConfig.

The shortcut is Option Esc, not Command Option Esc.

Questions

Related

• Dictation, zoom, and speak selection on any button
• Spoken feedback
• Drive VoiceOver from a game controller
• Accessibility
• How to use mouse side buttons on a Mac

Open source on GitHub.

Updated October 28, 2026