List of voices available by the `say` command on OS X

voices.txt

Agnes               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Albert              en_US    #  I have a frog in my throat. No, I mean a real frog!
Alex                en_US    # Most people recognize me by my voice.
Alice               it_IT    # Salve, mi chiamo Alice e sono una voce italiana.
Alva                sv_SE    # Hej, jag heter Alva. Jag är en svensk röst.
Amelie              fr_CA    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Amelie. Je suis une voix canadienne.
Anna                de_DE    # Hallo, ich heiße Anna und ich bin eine deutsche Stimme.
Bad News            en_US    # The light you see at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of a fast approaching train.
Bahh                en_US    # Do not pull the wool over my eyes.
Bells               en_US    # Time flies when you are having fun.
Boing               en_US    # Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's here and it's colder than usual.
Bruce               en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Bubbles             en_US    # Pull the plug! I'm drowning!
Carmit              he_IL    # שלום. קוראים לי כרמית, ואני קול בשפה העברית.
Cellos              en_US    # Doo da doo da dum dee dee doodly doo dum dum dum doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo
Damayanti           id_ID    # Halo, nama saya Damayanti. Saya berbahasa Indonesia.
Daniel              en_GB    # Hello, my name is Daniel. I am a British-English voice.
Deranged            en_US    # I need to go on a really long vacation.
Diego               es_AR    # Hola, me llamo Diego y soy una voz española.
Ellen               nl_BE    # Hallo, mijn naam is Ellen. Ik ben een Belgische stem.
Fiona               en-scotland # Hello, my name is Fiona. I am a Scottish-English voice.
Fred                en_US    # I sure like being inside this fancy computer
Good News           en_US    # Congratulations you just won the sweepstakes and you don't have to pay income tax again.
Hysterical          en_US    # Please stop tickling me!
Ioana               ro_RO    # Bună, mă cheamă Ioana . Sunt o voce românească.
Joana               pt_PT    # Olá, chamo-me Joana e dou voz ao português falado em Portugal.
Junior              en_US    # My favorite food is pizza.
Kanya               th_TH    # สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันชื่อKanya
Karen               en_AU    # Hello, my name is Karen. I am an Australian-English voice.
Kathy               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Kyoko               ja_JP    # こんにちは、私の名前はKyokoです。日本語の音声をお届けします。
Laura               sk_SK    # Ahoj. Volám sa Laura . Som hlas v slovenskom jazyku.
Lekha               hi_IN    # नमस्कार, मेरा नाम लेखा है.Lekha[[FEMALE_NAME]]मै हिंदी मे बोलने वाली आवाज़ हूँ.
Luciana             pt_BR    # Olá, o meu nome é Luciana e a minha voz corresponde ao português que é falado no Brasil
Mariska             hu_HU    # Üdvözlöm! Mariska vagyok. Én vagyok a magyar hang.
Mei-Jia             zh_TW    # 您好，我叫美佳。我說國語。
Melina              el_GR    # Γεια σας, ονομάζομαι Melina. Είμαι μια ελληνική φωνή.
Milena              ru_RU    # Здравствуйте, меня зовут Milena. Я – русский голос системы.
Moira               en_IE    # Hello, my name is Moira. I am an Irish-English voice.
Monica              es_ES    # Hola, me llamo Monica y soy una voz española.
Nora                nb_NO    # Hei, jeg heter Nora. Jeg er en norsk stemme.
Paulina             es_MX    # Hola, me llamo Paulina y soy una voz mexicana.
Pipe Organ          en_US    # We must rejoice in this morbid voice.
Princess            en_US    # When I grow up I'm going to be a scientist.
Ralph               en_US    # The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.
Samantha            en_US    # Hello, my name is Samantha. I am an American-English voice.
Sara                da_DK    # Hej, jeg hedder Sara. Jeg er en dansk stemme.
Satu                fi_FI    # Hei, minun nimeni on Satu. Olen suomalainen ääni.
Sin-ji              zh_HK    # 您好，我叫 Sin-ji。我講廣東話。
Tarik               ar_SA    # مرحبًا اسمي Tarik. أنا عربي من السعودية.
Tessa               en_ZA    # Hello, my name is Tessa. I am a South African-English voice.
Thomas              fr_FR    # Bonjour, je m’appelle Thomas. Je suis une voix française.
Ting-Ting           zh_CN    # 您好，我叫Ting-Ting。我讲中文普通话。
Trinoids            en_US    # We cannot communicate with these carbon units.
Veena               en_IN    # Hello, my name is Veena. I am an Indian-English voice.
Vicki               en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Victoria            en_US    # Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?
Whisper             en_US    # Pssssst, hey you, Yeah you, Who do ya think I'm talking to, the mouse?
Xander              nl_NL    # Hallo, mijn naam is Xander. Ik ben een Nederlandse stem.
Yelda               tr_TR    # Merhaba, benim adım Yelda. Ben Türkçe bir sesim.
Yuna                ko_KR    # 안녕하세요. 제 이름은 Yuna입니다. 저는 한국어 음성입니다.
Zarvox              en_US    # That looks like a peaceful planet.
Zosia               pl_PL    # Witaj. Mam na imię Zosia, jestem głosem kobiecym dla języka polskiego.
Zuzana              cs_CZ    # Dobrý den, jmenuji se Zuzana. Jsem český hlas.

... you can get the missing ones and more in Preferences > Accessibility > Speech, clicking the voice selector and in there Customize

Indeed, many thanks! 👍

@anthonyshibitov you can get the missing ones and more in Preferences > Accessibility > Speech, clicking the voice selector and in there Customize

Thanks!!!

Anyone know which of these voices are the Siri Female (United States) which I can select in Settings > Accessibility > Speech. I've tested them all, but none seem to sound like that voice.

I am asking because I need to convert some text to audio and I want to have it sound the same as when I select some text and have it speak with Option+ Esc.

Anyone know which of these voices are the Siri Female (United States) which I can select in Settings > Accessibility > Speech. I've tested them all, but none seem to sound like that voice.

I am asking because I need to convert some text to audio and I want to have it sound the same as when I select some text and have it speak with Option+ Esc.

Samantha

Anyone know which of these voices are the Siri Female (United States) which I can select in Settings > Accessibility > Speech. I've tested them all, but none seem to sound like that voice.
I am asking because I need to convert some text to audio and I want to have it sound the same as when I select some text and have it speak with Option+ Esc.

Samantha

I did some testing and Samantha is not really the same voice if you have a listen. These are Siri on iOS, Siri on macOS and Samantha compared.

I was able to download the German Siri voice through the accessibility tab.
When hovering over the entry "Siri Female (Germany)" it reveals, that the voice is actually called "Helena".

I was able to find a HelenaSiri.SpeechVoice folder in System/Library /Speech/Voices, however when trying to use this voice in the terminal, I always get the message "Voice 'Helena' not found.

All other alternatives like HelenaSiri, Helena Siri, etc. don't work either.

BTW for you Americans, your Siri voice is actually called NoraSiri. But same issue applies.

Any idea how to get it done?

@FlipMuc amazing research I've done some more digging and found this Alfred workflow which is not really the solution, but I'm researching it now an it seems a step in the right direction.

say -v '?' | awk '{print $1}' | while read voice; do printf "using $voice...\n"; say -v $voice "hello, this is me using the $voice voice"; sleep 1; done

set voiceNamesList (say -v \? | tr -s ' ' | sort -k2 | awk '{print $1,$2}' | tr '\n' ' ');
set voiceName (eval dialog --stdout --menu testy 25 40 15 $voiceNamesList); clear;
set voiceLine (say -v '?' | grep "$voiceName");

test -z "$voiceLine";
and echo "Error: No voice found for $voiceName.";
or begin;
  set voiceText (echo "$voiceLine" | tr -s ' '  | cut -d' ' -f3- | sed -r 's|^# ||');
  set command "say -v '$voiceName' '$voiceText'";
  echo "$voiceLine";
  eval "$command";
end

@mcauser, I like your command line, is there a way to feed the script with the voices.txt file or an XML file in order to make it say the file's commented text, which in their native correspondent language?

say -v '?' | awk '{print $1}' | while read voice; do printf "using $voice...\n"; say -v $voice "hello, this is me using the $voice voice"; sleep 1; done

@maustyle Isn't that what I just posted?

@maustyle Isn't that what I just posted?

The code part say -v $voice "hello, this is me using the $voice voice" only speaks English. How can you feed it your list to make it say "hello, this is me using.." in its own language, instead of always in English?

@maustyle

say -v '?' | while read line;
    do
        voice=$(echo $line | awk '{print $1}');
        phrase=$(echo $line | awk '{split($0,a,"#"); print a[2]}');
        echo "($voice) $phrase";
        say -v $voice "$voice: $phrase";
    done

Thank you a lot for this list. It is useful.

Which of these voices are available in high quality? Read Samantha a lot, but i am not convinced. ... ;)

say -v '?' | while read line;
    do
    voice=$(echo $line | awk '{print $1..
    ..
    done

@arturom

Now the code you wrote is more dynamic, great!

1. How do I execute the command to make this file (voices.txt) work?
2. Does the script need to be saved as a file in the same folder of this file (voices.txt) ?
3. Are there any requirements for this script to work with this file (voices.txt)?

Thank you!

@maustyle

The file voices.txt isn't special in any way. You don't need to download it and there is not much you can do with it. You can recreate that file with a list of the voices installed in your own Mac by simply going to your terminal and typing this command:

say -v '?'

If your Mac has different voices installed, it will show those voices instead of the ones in this list.

1. To execute the command I posted, you can simply copy/paste it into your terminal.
2. You can also save it to a file named mycommand.sh in your desktop and executing it by typing sh ~/Desktop/mycommand.sh
3. Again, voices.txt isn't special. If you want to install more voices, follow this guide

I split the script into many lines. Here is the same exact script I posted, but I deleted the new lines:

say -v '?' | while read line; do voice=$(echo $line | awk '{print $1}'); phrase=$(echo $line | awk '{split($0,a,"#"); print a[2]}'); echo "($voice) $phrase"; say -v $voice "$voice: $phrase"; done

Reading the manpage for say (as one does), I noticed an --interactive flag, so here's a modified version of @arturom's script above which highlights each word as it is read:

say -v '?' | while read line;
    do
        voice=$(echo $line | awk '{print $1}');
        phrase=$(echo $line | awk '{split($0,a,"#"); print a[2]}');
        say --interactive -v $voice "$voice: $phrase";
    done

Hello, can someone tell me what the language name for Siri is so I can read it out over the terminal with

cat text.txt | say -v anna -o vorgelesen.aiff

I have already tried Siri / siri for Anna but he tells me Siri does not exist.

cat text.txt | say -v siri -o vorgelesen.aiff
Voice `siri' not found.

@Nastras that is the same problem I'm having and you can't, the Siri voices are not part of any of the other speech tools on macOS. Here is more detail on the issue mklement0/speak.awf#1

Ok, I had already suspected something like that. I took the detour and let siri read the text and record it via soundflower and quick time to get an audio file without any loss.

Thanks for your hint.

@Nastras could you explain how that works, I would love to use something similar.

I have followed these instructions. It is unfortunately in German but you can certainly have it translated. The text to be read aloud I wrote in a text file and let Siri read it out over the voice output.

https://www.netzwelt.de/anleitung/159266-soundflower-so-zeichnet-interne-quellen.html

I hope it helps you?

Allison and Samanta are close to Siri voice. Both are downloadable from Speech content.

+1 for this topic
in browser if you select some text and choose "Speak" in contextual menu - you will here a nice Siri voice
and apparently this voice is not available in the list of voices speechSynthesis.getVoices() :/

say -v cello droid

say -v Agnes              " Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?"
say -v Albert                 "  I have a frog in my throat. No, I mean a real frog!"
say -v Alex                   " Most people recognize me by my voice."
say -v Alice                  " Salve, mi chiamo Alice e sono una voce italiana."
say -v Alva                   " Hej, jag heter Alva. Jag är en svensk röst."
say -v Amelie                  " Bonjour, je m’appelle Amelie. Je suis une voix canadienne."
say -v Anna                   " Hallo, ich heiße Anna und ich bin eine deutsche Stimme."
say -v Bad News               " The light you see at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of a fast approaching train."
say -v Bahh                    " Do not pull the wool over my eyes."
say -v Bells                  " Time flies when you are having fun."
say -v Boing                  " Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's here and it's colder than usual."
say -v Bruce                  " I sure like being inside this fancy computer"
say -v Bubbles                " Pull the plug! I'm drowning!"
say -v Carmit                 " שלום. קוראים לי כרמית, ואני קול בשפה העברית."
say -v Cellos                 " Doo da doo da dum dee dee doodly doo dum dum dum doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo da doo"
say -v Damayanti              " Halo, nama saya Damayanti. Saya berbahasa Indonesia."
say -v Daniel                 " Hello, my name is Daniel. I am a British-English voice."
say -v Deranged              " I need to go on a really long vacation."
say -v Diego                   " Hola, me llamo Diego y soy una voz española."
say -v Ellen                   " Hallo, mijn naam is Ellen. Ik ben een Belgische stem."
say -v Fiona                " Hello, my name is Fiona. I am a Scottish-English voice."
say -v Fred                    " I sure like being inside this fancy computer"
say -v Good News               " Congratulations you just won the sweepstakes and you don't have to pay income tax again."
say -v Hysterical              " Please stop tickling me!"
say -v Ioana                   " Bună, mă cheamă Ioana . Sunt o voce românească."
say -v Joana                   " Olá, chamo-me Joana e dou voz ao português falado em Portugal."
say -v Junior                  " My favorite food is pizza."
say -v Kanya                   " สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันชื่อKanya"
say -v Karen                   " Hello, my name is Karen. I am an Australian-English voice."
say -v Kathy                   " Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?"
say -v Kyoko                   " こんにちは、私の名前はKyokoです。日本語の音声をお届けします。"
say -v Laura                   " Ahoj. Volám sa Laura . Som hlas v slovenskom jazyku."
say -v Lekha                   " नमस्कार, मेरा नाम लेखा है.Lekha[[FEMALE_NAME]]मै हिंदी मे बोलने वाली आवाज़ हूँ."
say -v Luciana                 " Olá, o meu nome é Luciana e a minha voz corresponde ao português que é falado no Brasil"
say -v Mariska                 " Üdvözlöm! Mariska vagyok. Én vagyok a magyar hang."
say -v Mei-Jia                 " 您好，我叫美佳。我說國語。"
say -v Melina                  " Γεια σας, ονομάζομαι Melina. Είμαι μια ελληνική φωνή."
say -v Milena                  " Здравствуйте, меня зовут Milena. Я – русский голос системы."
say -v Moira                   " Hello, my name is Moira. I am an Irish-English voice."
say -v Monica                  " Hola, me llamo Monica y soy una voz española."
say -v Nora                    " Hei, jeg heter Nora. Jeg er en norsk stemme."
say -v Paulina                 " Hola, me llamo Paulina y soy una voz mexicana."
say -v Pipe Organ              " We must rejoice in this morbid voice."
say -v Princess                " When I grow up I'm going to be a scientist."
say -v Ralph                   " The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse."
say -v Samantha                " Hello, my name is Samantha. I am an American-English voice."
say -v Sara                    " Hej, jeg hedder Sara. Jeg er en dansk stemme."
say -v Satu                    " Hei, minun nimeni on Satu. Olen suomalainen ääni."
say -v Sin-ji                  " 您好，我叫 Sin-ji。我講廣東話。"
say -v Tarik                   " مرحبًا اسمي Tarik. أنا عربي من السعودية."
say -v Tessa                   " Hello, my name is Tessa. I am a South African-English voice."
say -v Thomas                  " Bonjour, je m’appelle Thomas. Je suis une voix française."
say -v Ting-Ting               " 您好，我叫Ting-Ting。我讲中文普通话。"
say -v Trinoids                " We cannot communicate with these carbon units."
say -v Veena                   " Hello, my name is Veena. I am an Indian-English voice."
say -v Vicki                   " Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?"
say -v Victoria                " Isn't it nice to have a computer that will talk to you?"
say -v Whisper                 " Pssssst, hey you, Yeah you, Who do ya think I'm talking to, the mouse?"
say -v Xander                  " Hallo, mijn naam is Xander. Ik ben een Nederlandse stem."
say -v Yelda                   " Merhaba, benim adım Yelda. Ben Türkçe bir sesim."
say -v Yuna                    " 안녕하세요. 제 이름은 Yuna입니다. 저는 한국어 음성입니다."
say -v Zarvox                  " That looks like a peaceful planet."
say -v Zosia                   " Witaj. Mam na imię Zosia, jestem głosem kobiecym dla języka polskiego."
say -v Zuzana                  "Dobrý den, jmenuji se Zuzana. Jsem český hlas."

The worst one is Bells. It gives me nightmares.

The worst one is Bells. It gives me nightmares.

@nikitaosx Then try Bahh...

while read line; do
  VOICE=$(echo $line | awk -F " +" '{print $1}');
  TEXT=$(echo $line | cut -d "#" -f 2);
  echo "VOICE: $VOICE";
  say -v $VOICE "My name is $VOICE. $TEXT";
done < <(curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/mculp/4b95752e25c456d425c6/raw/01dc37abb4bf100c7966e1d0b1e320d90333fd0b/voices.txt)

this just a dump of say -v ?. nothing special