Listen to newsletters and long emails on Mac

Short answerSelect the newsletter text and press Option-Esc for the built-in reader. For a better experience, Aloud ($19 once) reads it from any app with Control-Option-S, or reads the web version with Control-Option-A, skipping menus and ads.

Start with what your Mac already has

1. Turn on Speak Selection. Open System Settings → Accessibility → Read & Speak (called Spoken Content on macOS 14 and 15) and switch on Speak selection.
2. Download a better voice. Choose System voice → Manage Voices and download an Enhanced or Premium voice in your language.
3. Read any selection. Select text and press Option-Esc. Press it again to stop.
4. Set a comfortable speed. Use the Speaking rate slider in the same settings.

Related: read emails aloud on Mac and read web articles aloud.

Make it easier with Aloud

Aloud (ours, $19 once per Mac, macOS 14 or later) is built for listening every day:

• Browser articles: Control-Option-A reads the front tab of Safari, Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi or Chromium without menus, ads and captions.
• Select text in any app and press Control-Option-S (or right-click → Services → Read with Aloud).
• A reading window with a word highlight and click-to-seek, so you can jump to any sentence.
• Speed from 0.75x to 2x, changed mid-sentence, and resume from the last sentence.
• Natural voices: your Mac's Enhanced and Premium voices, the on-device Kokoro neural voice (Apple silicon, macOS 15+), or ElevenLabs/Cartesia with your own API key.
• Private by default: with Apple or Kokoro voices nothing leaves your Mac; no account, no analytics in the app.

Buy Aloud, $19 once   No subscription, no account.