To make a Mac read text aloud, highlight the text and press a shortcut. Apple's built-in Speak selection does this with the system voices, and the free Readwalk for Mac widget does it with more natural voices, highlights each word, and can also read scanned pages and images you can't select.
Option 1: Speak selection, built into macOS
Speak selection comes with every Mac and costs nothing. It's the quickest way to hear a sentence or a paragraph.
- Open System Settings and choose Accessibility.
- Open Read & Speak. On older versions of macOS it has a different name; look for the speech settings in the same Accessibility list.
- Turn on Speak selection.
- Highlight text in any app and press Option-Escape. Press it again to stop.
Under System voice you can download better voices. The "Premium" and "Enhanced" voices sound much less robotic than the default ones, so pick one before you judge the feature.
Many apps, including Safari, Notes and TextEdit, also have Edit › Speech › Start Speaking in the menu bar.
Where it falls short: it reads in one go with no word-by-word highlighting, it can't read text inside a scanned PDF or an image, and even the best system voices start to tire the ear over a long article.
Option 2: Readwalk for Mac, free
Readwalk for Mac is a small floating widget that sits above your other windows. It's free, and its voices run on your Mac, so they work offline and what you read stays on your computer.
- Download it from readwalk.app/mac and drag it to Applications.
- Open it. The first time, it downloads its voices (about 340 MB, once).
- Highlight text in any app and press play on the widget.
- The widget shows the line being read, with each word highlighted, plus pause, skip and stop.
The first time you press play, macOS asks for Accessibility permission. That lets Readwalk copy the text you've highlighted. You can also right-click highlighted text and choose Services › Read Aloud with Readwalk.
Reading text you can't highlight
A scanned PDF, a photo of a worksheet, a slide in a video or a shared screen in a meeting has no text to select. Press the screen button on the Readwalk widget and drag a box around it. Readwalk finds the words in the picture and reads them aloud.
Which one should you use?
| Speak selection | Readwalk for Mac | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, built in | Free download |
| Voices | Apple system voices | Natural voices made on your Mac |
| Highlights each word | No | Yes |
| Scanned PDFs and images | No | Yes, drag a box around them |
| Speed control | In settings | 0.75× to 2× from the widget |
| Needs a download | No | Yes, about 370 MB with voices |
| Works on | Any Mac | Macs with Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later |
For a quick sentence, Speak selection is fine. For articles, reports, long emails and anything you'd like to listen to while you do something else, the more natural voice and the word highlighting make a real difference.
Listening away from your desk
If you'd rather listen on a walk than at your desk, Readwalk for Mac can send what you've highlighted to the Readwalk app on your iPhone. It travels through your own iCloud Drive and shows up in your library, ready to play with your phone in your pocket.
Frequently asked questions
Can my Mac read a PDF out loud?
Yes. If the PDF has selectable text, highlight it in Preview and use Speak selection or the Readwalk widget. If it's a scan, there's no text to select, so use Readwalk's screen button and drag a box around the page.
What's the keyboard shortcut to make a Mac read text?
Apple's Speak selection uses Option-Escape once it's turned on. Readwalk for Mac uses Option-Escape too, so if you turn on both, macOS may pick either one. Keep one of them on to avoid surprises.
Does a Mac have natural-sounding text to speech?
The built-in Premium voices are good for short passages. Readwalk for Mac uses a newer kind of voice made by a small AI model running on your Mac, which sounds closer to a person reading and suits long listening.
Does Readwalk for Mac work on Intel Macs?
No. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer) running macOS 15 Sequoia or later, because its voices run on Apple's newer chips.
