🔊 Text to Speech
Listen to any text using the voices built into your device — free, no sign-up, works offline with on-device voices
✓ Free Forever · ✓ No Signup · ✓ No Upload · ✓ Works Offline
🔒 On-device voices keep your text on your device. Speech comes from your browser’s Web Speech API. Voices marked “online” in the list (Chrome’s “Google …”, Edge’s “… Online”) are the exception: the browser sends the text to its maker’s server to speak it. ToolKoala itself never receives your text.
Features
- Every Language Your Device Speaks — Lists every voice your browser and operating system offer — often dozens of languages and accents (a Mac with Chrome: 39 languages). The voice follows your text: paste Chinese and a Chinese voice is picked.
- Adjustable Speed & Pitch — Fine-tune playback speed from 0.5× to 2× and adjust pitch to suit your preference.
- Word Highlighting — The word being spoken is highlighted as it is read — with voices that report their position (on-device voices do; Chrome’s online voices don’t, and the page says so).
- Works Offline — On-device voices run in your browser’s own speech engine: no internet, nothing sent anywhere. Voices marked “online” are the exception and are labelled in the list.
How It Works
- Type or paste text — Enter the text you want to hear in the text area.
- Pick a voice — Choose from available voices and adjust speed, pitch, and volume.
- Click Play — Listen to your text read aloud. Pause, resume, or stop at any time.
Use Cases
- Proofread articles and emails by listening instead of reading
- Improve accessibility for visually impaired users
- Practice pronunciation for language learning
- Listen to long articles or documents hands-free
Frequently Asked Questions
Which browsers support this?
All modern browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox) support the Web Speech API. Voice availability varies by browser and operating system.
Does it work offline?
With on-device voices, yes — they are installed on your computer or phone. Some browsers also list online voices (Chrome’s “Google …”, Edge’s “… Online”); those send the text to the browser maker’s server and need a connection, so the voice list marks them “online”.
How many languages are supported?
As many as your device has voices for — it varies a lot. A Mac with Chrome offers about 180 voices in 39 languages; Windows often ships only a few until you add language packs. You can add more voices in your system’s speech or language settings.
Notes from Milo 🐨
I opened this on the Chinese version of the site, pasted a paragraph of Chinese and pressed Play. Nothing. The page had picked my Mac's default voice, an English one, and it simply skips text it can't read, without a word. Now the voice follows your text: paste Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Arabic and so on and a voice that can read it is chosen, and if you pick one that can't, the page tells you and offers the right one. Chrome's "Google …" voices are now marked online in the list, because they send your text to Google to be spoken; the default is an on-device voice whenever your device has one. And when a voice doesn't report its position, you're told why there's no highlighting instead of wondering.
From the blog
- 📖 How to Turn Text Into Speech for Free (No Sign-Up) — Convert text to speech free in your browser with no sign-up. Paste, pick a voice, press play. Honest take on browser voices vs paid AI voices.
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💬 Bug, idea, or just to say hi? Tell Milo 🐨 · [email protected]