How to Download More Voices for Text to Speech

Q: How do I switch to a male voice?

Open Select Voice and check the Male or Female label under each entry. Nothing downloaded for your language yet? Get one from Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices — once it finishes, it shows up without restarting the app.

Standard, Enhanced and Premium iOS voices

The app speaks with whatever voices Apple builds into iOS, grouped into three quality tiers in the Voices tab under All Languages. Skip Standard entirely if your language has an Enhanced option — the jump in how natural it sounds is bigger than you'd expect from a free download.

iOS voice quality levels
Label in the app	What it is	Sound
Standard	Compact voice, usually installed already	Clear but flat and synthetic
Enhanced	Larger download	Smoother, more natural
Premium	Largest download, on newer iOS versions and devices	The most natural of the three

Which of these you can actually get depends on your iPhone model, iOS version and language. The app has no way to add voices of its own — it only lists what's already on the device.

Downloading a voice in iOS Settings

Open iOS Settings and go to Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices.
Tap your language, then a voice. Tap the download icon next to an Enhanced or Premium option.
Wait for it to finish — on Wi-Fi if it's a large voice.
Back in the app, the new voice is already in Select Voice and the Voices tab, no restart needed.

The app genuinely can't download voices itself. Download More Voices in the Voices tab just points at this same path as a reminder. A dimmed voice with a cloud icon in the list is one iOS offers that isn't on your device yet.

Switching the voice inside the app

In the Reader, tap the voice button, which shows the current voice's name.
In Select Voice, filter with the segments up top (All, Downloaded, Enhanced, Favorites), or type into Search voices.
Tap the play icon on any voice to preview it. Each one lists its language and Male or Female.
Tap the heart to add it to Favorite Voices, and tap the voice itself to select it — it becomes the Current Voice across the Reader, documents and exports.

Looking for the old robot narrator voice

A lot of people land here hunting for the flat, old narrator voice from memes and videos. The Classic Voice card at the top of the Voices tab finds the compact iOS voice for your language, preferring a male one, and selects it with speed and pitch both reset to normal. Preview it, tap Use this voice, and the card changes to say In use.

It is not the original desktop engine, though, and the app says so right on the card — just the compact voice built into iOS, which happens to land in roughly the same place. If no male compact voice is installed, the card points you to where to get one.

Fine-tune the voice

Pitch and speed both change a voice's character more than people expect. In Speed & Pitch or Voice Settings, Pitch runs from 0.5 to 2.0 and speed from 0.0x to 2.0x, 1.0x being normal. Running most voices a touch below 1.0 pitch makes nearly all of them sound calmer, and the Study preset at 0.8x is genuinely useful for a new language, not just a gimmick.

Questions and answers

How do I switch to a male voice?

Open Select Voice and check the Male or Female label under each entry. Nothing downloaded for your language yet? Get one from Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices — once it finishes, it shows up without restarting the app.

Why does the voice still sound robotic after I changed it?

You probably picked another Standard voice by accident. Look for one marked Enhanced or Premium instead, or download one first if none is on your device.

Are there AI voices?

No. The app uses only the voices already built into iOS — no cloud voices, no cloning.

Is changing the voice free?

Yes. Every voice on your device, the Classic Voice card, and the speed and pitch settings all cost nothing.

How to make your iPhone read text out loud · Text Reader Narrator

How to download Enhanced and Premium voices for text to speech on iPhone