Note: This site is currently "Under construction". I'm migrating to a new version of my site building software. Lots of things are in a state of disrepair as a result (for example, footnote links aren't working). It's all part of the process of building in public. Most things should still be readable though.

List Mac's Text-To-Speech Voices For The say Command (With Samples)

The `say`` command line app converts text to speech. There are a few different voices to chose from. To get a list of them from the command line use:

Code

say -v '?'

This is a list of samples for the default voices on my macOS 12.x machine sorted by language localization:

From The System Preferences

A list of voices is also available from:

System Preferences -> 
  Accessibility -> 
    Spoken Content

Click on the "System Voice" to get the basic list.

Adding voices

More voices can be added from the Speech Content System Preference panel. Click the "Customize" at the bottom of the "System Voice" selection list to choose the new ones.

Here's the samples for all the ones I available when I downloaded them.

Notes

  • Most info I found for getting the voice list is for older versions of macOS and doesn't work any more. This approach works with macOS 12.x.

  • The voices available from the `say`` command is different than what's available in the System Preferences. Most notably, the "Siri Voice #" voices are only in the preferences.

  • Info about the siri voices can be found on this answer. Setting the system default voice to a siri voice can make it available to `say`` according to that page

  • Adding some voices to the System Preferences did make them appear in the `say`` list (e.g Boing), but not all of them came thru

References