Free Text-to-Speech
Paste any text and have it read aloud in your browser — for free, with no signup, no upload, and no character cost. Choose from your device's available voices in 50+ languages, adjust speed and pitch, pause and resume, and listen to long documents one sentence at a time. The audio is generated locally by your browser using the standard Web Speech API. Your text never leaves your device.
Try Chrome, Edge, Safari, or a recent Firefox build to use this tool.
Install a voice in your OS speech settings, then reload this page:
- macOS: System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices
- Windows: Settings → Time & Language → Speech → Manage voices → Add voices
- Android: Settings → Accessibility → Text-to-speech output → Install voice data
- iOS / iPadOS: Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices
Shortcuts: Space play/pause, Esc stop, Ctrl/⌘+Enter read
Download
Save your input text, or record the spoken audio for offline use.
How does audio recording work?
The Web Speech API does not let pages capture its audio directly. We work around this by using your browser's getDisplayMedia API to record this tab's audio while the speech plays. When you click Record & download audio:
- Your browser shows a screen-share prompt — choose This Tab.
- Important: tick the Share tab audio checkbox.
- Speech starts automatically; the audio is captured locally.
- When playback finishes, a
.webmaudio file downloads.
Works on desktop Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Opera. Not supported on Safari, Firefox, or any mobile browser — those will see a clear error if they try.
Saved voice presets
How to use the text-to-speech tool
- Paste or type your text into the box at the top.
- Pick a language chip to narrow the voice list to that language.
- Choose a voice. Voices marked High quality are the natural-sounding cloud voices on your device.
- Adjust speed and pitch if you want a slower listen-along or a deeper/higher voice.
- Click Read aloud to start. Use Space to pause/resume, Esc to stop. Long text plays continuously across sentence boundaries.
- Save a preset if you've found a configuration you like — your last voice, speed, and pitch are restored next visit.
Voice quality varies by device — here's what to expect
Web Speech API voices come from your operating system and browser, not from this site. Quality differs widely:
- Microsoft Edge (Windows or Mac): The "Online (Natural)" voices are studio-quality and free. Best overall choice for English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin, and more.
- Safari (macOS / iOS): Excellent native voices like Samantha, Daniel, Karen, Lekha, Aditi.
- Chrome (any OS): Falls back to OS voices plus a few Google network voices. Hindi (
Google हिन्दी) and Mandarin (Google 普通话) are particularly good. - Firefox: Voices come from the OS only. Quality varies widely.
- Android Chrome: Uses Google Speech Services. Coverage is broad but voice timbre is more robotic than Edge.
- Linux: Default eSpeak voices are clearly synthetic. Install
speech-dispatcherwith high-quality voice packages for usable output.
If your favorite language has no voices, install one from your OS speech settings (see panel above), then reload.
Frequently asked questions
Does this text-to-speech tool send my text anywhere?
No. The tool uses your browser's built-in Web Speech API. Your text is read aloud locally on your device and is never uploaded to bulkcalculator.com or any third-party server. You can verify this by opening the Network tab in DevTools while clicking Read aloud — you'll see no outgoing requests.
How is this free? What's the catch?
Speech is generated by your browser and operating system, which already include free voices. We pay nothing per request, so we charge nothing. There's no signup, no API key, and no quota — just a static page that calls a standard browser feature.
Why do I see different voices than my friend on the same browser?
The voice list is provided by your operating system, not the browser. macOS, iOS, Windows, Android, and Linux each ship a different set of voices, and language packs add even more. Microsoft Edge on Windows also adds free "Online (Natural)" cloud voices that aren't available everywhere.
Why does my voice cut off mid-sentence on long text?
Chromium has a 15-second / ~200-character cutoff bug (Chromium issue 679437). We work around it by splitting your text into sentence-sized chunks and queuing each chunk separately, plus a 10-second pause/resume heartbeat to keep the engine alive. Long texts will play to completion. If you still see cutoffs, try Edge or Safari, which don't have this bug.
Can I download the audio?
Yes — on desktop Chrome, Edge, Brave, or Opera, click Record & download audio in the Download panel. The browser asks you to share this tab; pick "This Tab" and tick "Share tab audio". Speech then plays and is recorded to a .webm file on your computer. Not supported on Safari, Firefox, or any mobile browser — the standard Web Speech API does not expose its audio to pages, so we use the tab-capture API as a workaround, and that API isn't available everywhere. For studio-quality, commercial-licensed audio in any browser, services like ElevenLabs, Murf, or Microsoft Azure Neural Voices are still the right answer.
Can I save just the text?
Yes — click Download text (.txt) in the Download panel. The file includes a small header with the voice, language, and slider settings you used, so you can reproduce the exact playback later.
Which browser has the best TTS voices?
Microsoft Edge on Windows offers the highest-quality natural voices for free (Aria, Guy, Jenny, Madhur, Swara, Xiaoxiao, etc.). Safari on macOS/iOS has excellent native voices. Chrome falls back to OS-provided voices plus a small set of Google network voices. Linux voices are typically the weakest unless you install high-quality voice packages manually.
Why is there no Hindi voice on my computer?
Hindi voices are not pre-installed on every OS. On Windows, install the Hindi language pack under Settings → Time & Language → Speech → Manage voices → Add voices. On macOS, add a Hindi voice under System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice. Chrome can sometimes fall back to a Google Hindi cloud voice automatically.
Can I use this for commercial / YouTube videos?
Browser TTS voices are licensed for personal use by your OS vendor, and the licensing for redistribution (e.g. on YouTube) is unclear. For YouTube monetization, podcast publication, or commercial voiceover, use a service that explicitly licenses voices for commercial use (ElevenLabs, Murf, Microsoft Azure Neural Voices). Don't bake browser TTS audio into a published commercial product.