How to fix suspicious Text-to-Speech Messages on Mac?

Today I was screen sharing to my friend thru discord then I've heard a really deep text to speech voice saying something in English it was hard to understand it but it was saying "something staff told me friend red heart that I love you" I freaked out and instantly reseted my MacBook I don't know if it's a malware or not because I just bought this Mac and I barely downloaded anything to it other than my games. Can somebody help me


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Jul 8, 2024 1:51 PM

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Posted on Jul 8, 2024 2:53 PM

There are all kinds of non-nefarious things this could be.


The first that comes to mind is the built-in Accessibility support for blind or visually-impaired users - specifically the ability to 'read' what's on the screen - this sounds like an incoming message that the OS is 'reading' to you.


The OS has this ability built in, and can read from any application - check System Settings -> Accessibility -> Spoken Content to see which (if any) options are enabled.


Discord also has its own built-in trigger to read incoming messages to you. Check Discord settings -> Accessibility -> Text-to-Speech to see if it's enabled there.


The other, even simpler, option is that someone sent an audio file through Discord and that's what you're hearing.


Beyond that, there's no malware that I'm aware of that will arbitrarily speak content to you

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 8, 2024 2:53 PM in response to kewykew

There are all kinds of non-nefarious things this could be.


The first that comes to mind is the built-in Accessibility support for blind or visually-impaired users - specifically the ability to 'read' what's on the screen - this sounds like an incoming message that the OS is 'reading' to you.


The OS has this ability built in, and can read from any application - check System Settings -> Accessibility -> Spoken Content to see which (if any) options are enabled.


Discord also has its own built-in trigger to read incoming messages to you. Check Discord settings -> Accessibility -> Text-to-Speech to see if it's enabled there.


The other, even simpler, option is that someone sent an audio file through Discord and that's what you're hearing.


Beyond that, there's no malware that I'm aware of that will arbitrarily speak content to you

Jul 11, 2024 5:05 AM in response to kewykew

If there is Malware installed on this computer


It would be because the user ( you ) was duped into installing this Malware


Then perhaps, unknowing, the user chose to By-Pass the Builtin Security Apple has to protect against Malware by giving Permission to install


Protecting against malware in macOS


Download the Trusted Application Etrecheck ( External Link ) directly from the Developer


It can catch Malware and possible remove it



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How to fix suspicious Text-to-Speech Messages on Mac?

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