Make Your Mac Speak with Siri’s Voice

You can install Siri’s voice files to OS X Mountain Lion and use its built-in speech tools to have the Siri voice talk to you upon request, such as reading aloud highlighted text.

Activating the Siri Voice Files

Here are the steps needed to switch to the Siri voice files: 

1. Open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences), and click the Dictation & Speech icon.

2. When the Dictation & Speech pane appears, click the Text to Speech tab.

3. Click the System Voice drop-down list, and select Customize.

4. In the drop-down dialog box, scroll down and select Samantha, which will be under the English (United States) heading. Then click OK. (If you’re British, you might want to select the Daniel voice under the English [United Kingdom] heading to get the default British Siri voice; Australian users should select Karen under the English [Australia] heading.)

5. You’ll be asked if you want to download and install a new voice. Agree to do so.

6. The voice will now be downloaded and installed, although be aware that it’s almost half a gigabyte in size so might take some time to come down the line. Once it’s finished, select it within the System Voice drop-down list within System Preferences.

Testing the New Voice

You can test the new voice within Safari or TextEdit by highlighting a paragraph of text and then clicking Edit→Speech→Start Speaking. Note that it takes a few seconds for Speech to start the first time you use it, and you might have to quit and restart the app in question for the new voice to start working.

If you get tired of the Siri voice, you can switch to any of the other voices using the System Voice drop-down list, as described earlier. The default voice is Alex.