Download Better Text-to-Speech Voices

How to download enhanced and premium voices for Read Aloud in BookShelves on macOS and iOS.

BookShelves uses your device’s built-in text-to-speech system for Read Aloud. Every Mac and iPhone comes with compact voices pre-installed, but Apple offers enhanced and premium voices that sound significantly more natural. These are free to download but not installed by default.

macOS

macOS 26 Tahoe and later

  1. Open System Settings
  2. Click Accessibility in the sidebar
  3. Click Read & Speak
  4. Click the settings button (gear icon) next to System Voice
  5. Click Voice to browse available voices
  6. Click Download next to any enhanced or premium voice
  7. Wait for the download to complete (premium voices are ~500 MB)

macOS 15 Sequoia

  1. Open System Settings
  2. Click Accessibility in the sidebar
  3. Click Spoken Content
  4. Click the System Voice dropdown
  5. Click Manage Voices…
  6. Expand your language and download an enhanced or premium voice

macOS 14 Sonoma and earlier

  1. Open System Settings (or System Preferences)
  2. Go to Accessibility > Spoken Content
  3. Click System Voice > Manage Voices…
  4. Download enhanced voices for your language

Tip

If you can’t find the voice settings, open System Settings and type “voices” in the search bar at the top.

iOS / iPadOS

  1. Open the Settings app
  2. Tap Accessibility
  3. Tap Spoken Content
  4. Tap Voices
  5. Tap your language (e.g., English)
  6. Browse voices — those with a download icon are not yet installed
  7. Tap a voice to hear a preview, then tap Download

Voice Quality Tiers

TierQualitySizeAvailability
CompactBasic, roboticPre-installedAll devices
EnhancedNatural, clear~150 MBDownload required
PremiumMost natural~500 MBmacOS 14+ / iOS 17+

BookShelves automatically selects the best voice available for your book’s language. Once you download a better voice, it will be used the next time you start Read Aloud.

Troubleshooting

Read Aloud uses the wrong language voice: BookShelves detects the language from the book’s metadata. If the metadata is incorrect, the wrong language voice may be selected. Most books from Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, and OAPEN have correct language metadata.

I downloaded a voice but it’s not being used: Stop Read Aloud and start it again. The voice is resolved when playback begins.

Where is “Read Aloud” in BookShelves?

  • macOS: Click the speaker icon in the reader toolbar
  • iOS: Tap the menu button in the reader, then tap “Read Aloud”