Option Esc and right click start speaking use two different Siri voices

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Option Esc and right click start speaking use two different Siri voices

There was a closed thread on this from a few years ago that had no answer to it so I'm reopening it here.

The subject says it all. If I use Option-Esc to have my 2017 Macbook Pro, with 16Gb of memory running MacOS Big Sur 11.6, start speaking it uses the voice I select, if I select only part of the page by highlighting and navigating to "start speaking" it uses the voice "Alex"

I called support at one point and the Apple Advisor had me uncheck and recheck a bunch of things and close and reopen all my programs and eventually it did start to use the Siri voice I had selected. I was happy and assumed there was a secondary cache somewhere that just needed to get updated on my system but it did not take it long for the system to revert back to doing exactly what it did before. On top of that, for the life of me, I cannot remember what the Apple Advisor had me do for the temporary fix.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Oct 18, 2021 7:44 AM

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Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,416 points

Oct 18, 2021 8:07 AM in response to sleeplessdreamer

sleeplessdreamer wrote:

There was a closed thread on this from a few years ago that had no answer to it so I'm reopening it here.

The subject says it all. If I use Option-Esc to have my 2017 Macbook Pro, with 16Gb of memory running MacOS Big Sur 11.6, start speaking it uses the voice I select, if I select only part of the page by highlighting and navigating to "start speaking" it uses the voice "Alex"

I called support at one point and the Apple Advisor had me uncheck and recheck a bunch of things and close and reopen all my programs and eventually it did start to use the Siri voice I had selected. I was happy and assumed there was a secondary cache somewhere that just needed to get updated on my system but it did not take it long for the system to revert back to doing exactly what it did before. On top of that, for the life of me, I cannot remember what the Apple Advisor had me do for the temporary fix.

I would suspect one is on-board Siri, and the other is Internet accessed Siri...

Make changes and test...>System Preferences>Siri

Choose how Siri speaks: Click the Language pop-up menu, then choose a language. Select a voice from the list to hear a preview, then choose the voice that you want Siri to use. If available, click the Voice Variety pop-up menu to hear a different set of Siri voices.

Siri - Apple

Use Siri on your Mac - Apple Support

How to use Siri on your Mac - Apple Support

Change Siri voice or language - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Oct 18, 2021 8:55 AM in response to leroydouglas

I think you're on the right path, but it's through accessibility that "Start Speaking" works and you have access to the onboard voices as well as the installed Siri voices. BUT the Siri voices, while they can be selected will not work with "Start Speaking" but do work with Option-Esc. The OS defaults to the first one in the list, Alex, when it can't make the selection work. I can choose Samantha or Victoria or Fred etc but not Siri Voice 1 or 4. It's as though those voices that are specific to Siri are InAccessible in Accessibility for the "Start Speaking" feature selected through the right-click context menu even though "Option-Esc" can utilize it.

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Option Esc and right click start speaking use two different Siri voices

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