About the Text to Speech
This free online text to speech (TTS) reader turns written text into speech right in your browser. Listen to articles, emails and reports while you rest your eyes, proofread an essay or a speech by ear, or hear how a sentence sounds in another language. The text is read sentence by sentence, so even long documents play to the end without cutting off.
Speech is produced by your browser’s Web Speech API using the voices installed on Windows, macOS, iOS or Android. Most voices run on your device. Voices marked ☁ (such as Google or Microsoft online voices) may send the text to that provider to generate audio.
How to use
- Type or paste the text you want to hear.
- Choose a voice. For text in another language, turn on Show voices for all languages and pick a voice for that language.
- Adjust the speed (0.5× to 2×), pitch and volume.
- Tap Read aloud. Each sentence is highlighted as it is read. Tap any sentence in the follow-along box to jump to it.
Where the voices come from
| System | Typical English voices | How to add more |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 10/11 | Microsoft David, Zira, Mark; natural online voices in Edge | Settings → Time & language → Speech → Add voices |
| macOS | Samantha, Alex, Daniel and Siri voices | System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System voice |
| iPhone / iPad | Samantha, Daniel, Karen and enhanced voices | Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices |
| Android / Chrome | Google US English, UK English | Settings → Accessibility → Text-to-speech output |
Microsoft Edge offers the largest choice of natural-sounding online voices.
Why can’t I download the audio as MP3?
The browser’s speech synthesis (speechSynthesis) sends sound straight to your speakers and provides no way to capture it as a file. That’s why this tool doesn’t offer an MP3 download, and also why your text doesn’t need to be uploaded anywhere. If you need an audio file, record your computer’s sound output or use a TTS service whose license allows downloads.
FAQ
The voice list is empty or has no voice for my language.
Browsers sometimes need a few seconds to load the system voices, so wait a moment or reload. If a language is still missing, install a voice for it in your operating system’s speech settings (see the table above).
Will it read a long document?
Yes. The text is split into sentences and read one at a time, which avoids Chrome’s habit of stopping long utterances after about 15 seconds. Very long sentences are split at commas or spaces.
Why does Resume restart the current sentence?
The pause function of speech synthesis is unreliable in some browsers, especially on Android. To resume reliably, reading continues from the beginning of the sentence where you paused.
Is my text sent to a server?
This site doesn’t store or upload your text; it’s kept only in your browser so you can come back to it. Online voices marked ☁ may send the text to their provider (e.g. Google or Microsoft) to create the speech, so choose an on-device voice for sensitive content.