Control Narrator playback

Control a narration from the floating player, the Narrator page, your keyboard, or Control Center. Narrator saves your place in every narration, so you can continue later.

Play, pause, and move through the text

The floating player's play button pauses and resumes. The row under it shows the whole narration's progress, with the time played on the left and the time left on the right. Drag along it to move to another part of the narration. The buttons on either side move back or forward one sentence.

While a narration is loaded, the Now playing card at the top of the Narrator page has the same controls, plus the voice in use.

Your keyboard's media keys and your headphones work too, as Use the media keys and headphones describes. Control Center's Now Playing shows the narration's title and lets you drag to another point. If it shows skip buttons, they move by the skip interval; if it shows track buttons, they do what F7 and F9 do. For an EPUB book or a PDF you add, it also shows the book's cover or the PDF's first page. The skip interval is 15 seconds; to change it to 5, 10 or 30, change Skip interval in Settings → Narrator → Voice and playback.

Use the media keys and headphones

F8 pauses and resumes. F9 goes to the next chapter, and from the last chapter to the next narration in Up Next. F7 goes back to the start of the chapter, or to the chapter before if you're within the first 3 seconds of this one. Within the first 3 seconds of the first chapter, it goes back to the narration Up Next played before. In text that comes before the first heading, such as a preface, F7 skips back by the skip interval instead, or goes back in Up Next within the first 3 seconds.

In a narration without chapters, F9 moves on to the next narration in Up Next. F7 goes back to the one Up Next played before, but only within 3 seconds of where this narration started; after that it skips back. When there is nowhere to go in Up Next, both keys skip back and forward by the skip interval. They do the same for a moment after a narration starts, while Narrator finds its chapters. A paused narration stays paused when you move by chapter.

On AirPods, a double press goes forward like F9 and a triple press goes back like F7. Other headphones with next and previous track buttons work the same way.

While Up Next waits for you to press Play, F9 starts the waiting narration. F7 plays the narration that just ended again from its start, or goes back in Up Next once the player has closed.

While you dictate, the keys never start another narration. They move by chapter or skip within the narration you're listening to, and the dictation carries on.

Use the keyboard

The Narrator page answers Space, the arrow keys, and [ and ], and so does the floating player once the Focus the player shortcut gives it the keyboard. Playback shortcuts work from any app. Control Narrator from the keyboard lists every key and shortcut.

Change the speed

Select the speed control on the floating player or the Now playing card to choose any pace from 0.5× to 3×. Faster and Slower in the player's speed menu, and + and − on the card, move 0.1× at a time between 1× and 2×, and 0.25× outside that range. The change applies straight away and does not use more cloud voice minutes.

Narrator keeps the speed you choose for your next narration, including after you quit. Changing Speed in Settings → Narrator → Voice and playback sets it too.

Turn on Increase Speed Automatically in the speed menu to speed up by 0.1× after every 500 words you hear, up to 3×.

Follow the spoken text

The floating player shows the text as Narrator reads it and scrolls to keep the current sentence in view. To see one word at a time in the same spot instead, open the player's More menu and choose RSVP under Text.

Scroll the player's text yourself, with the trackpad, a mouse wheel, or the scroll bar, and it stops following. While the player has the keyboard, Page Up, Page Down, Home and End scroll its text and stop it following too. Resting the pointer on the text holds it still.

Choose Back to playhead at the bottom right of the text to bring the sentence being read back into view and follow it again. Its arrow points up or down to that sentence. Clicking a word, skipping back or forward, moving to another sentence or chapter, and starting another narration bring it back too. While the player has the keyboard and Keyboard navigation is on in System Settings → Keyboard, press Tab to reach Back to playhead and Space to choose it. The narration keeps playing.

Narrator highlights the sentence it is reading. To highlight the spoken word instead, or both, choose Word or Both under Highlight in the floating player's More menu, or change Highlight in Settings → Narrator → Player. The choice applies in the player and on the Narrator page.

Click any word in the player's text to continue from there. Web and email links in the text open when you click them. Any other kind of link is plain text, so clicking it continues from that word. Right-click a word to choose Read from Here, or Pronounce “word”… to teach Narrator how to say it.

With VoiceOver, the player's text reads the sentence being spoken. The progress row on the player and on the Now playing card is a slider that VoiceOver moves by the skip interval.

Change how the text looks

Choose Aa on the Now playing card at the top of the Narrator page, or open Settings → Narrator → Text style. Both show the same controls, and a change applies straight away.

On the Narrator page, the style applies to all of the narration text, including the text under Recent narrations. The floating player keeps its own text size and line spacing. By default the text is Sans serif at 14 points, with normal spacing, the pink band, line focus off, and following on.

With Follow the narration off, the floating player's text never scrolls by itself. Back to playhead then shows only while the sentence being read is out of view, and brings it into view once.

With Reduce motion on in System Settings → Accessibility → Display, the text jumps to the sentence being read instead of scrolling to it.

Jump to a chapter

A document with at least two headings has chapters. Choose one under Chapters in the floating player's More menu, or in the More menu on the Now playing card. For a narration that is not playing, open its More menu under Recent narrations and choose a chapter to start there.

An EPUB book takes its chapters from its table of contents. Plain text comes in without headings, so it has no chapters.

Set a sleep timer

A sleep timer pauses the narration after the time you choose. Open the floating player's More menu and choose one under Sleep Timer: 15 Minutes, 30 Minutes, 45 Minutes, 60 Minutes, End of Chapter for a document with chapters, or End of Narration while anything is lined up in Up Next. The More menu on the Now playing card offers the same choices.

While the timer runs, the player shows the time left, End of chapter or End of narration where the title was. Paused time does not count. The voice fades out over the last ten seconds, then the narration pauses. Press play to continue from the same place.

Choose Turn Off Sleep Timer to cancel it. Stopping the narration or opening another one cancels it too, except through Up Next. When Up Next plays on by itself, a minutes timer carries on into the next narration. When you move to a narration in Up Next with Skip to Next, a row's play button, its title in a menu, or F7 and F9, the timer goes with you: a minutes timer keeps the time it has left, and End of Narration stops at the end of the narration you moved to.

Continue where you left off

Narrator keeps your place in a narration for as long as it is in your library. When no narration is playing or paused, Continue listening at the top of the Narrator page and of All narrations shows up to three narrations you started and have not finished, most recent first, with how much is left. Select one to continue from the start of the sentence you stopped in. An EPUB book appears there once you listen past its first sentence.

You can also continue from the Epilude icon in the menu bar. Under Narrator, choose the Continue item, which shows the title of your most recent unfinished narration. With nothing loaded, the Play or pause playback shortcut continues your most recent unfinished narration, or starts Up Next if you used Up Next more recently.

Use the floating player

The floating player keeps playback close while you use another app. Its More menu also switches voices, opens the Voice Library while a cloud voice is selected, shares the narration, and lists what's lined up in Up Next. Show Subtitles turns the text off, and Show Player turns the whole player off.

Drag the player by its header to move it. Reset Position in the More menu puts it back above the dictation pill. Click – to shrink it to a small capsule with play, pause, and the time, and click the expand button to bring the full player back.

Open Settings → Narrator → Player to hide the player, hide its follow-along text, choose a short excerpt or one synchronized word, choose the highlight, and set how long the player remains after playback ends.

Find, keep, or export a narration

Open All narrations to search your library, rename an entry, or delete it. Search looks through each narration's text as well as its title, and shows the words around each match. Under Recent narrations, Copy narration copies a narration's text. Its More menu can also export the audio as an M4A file, read by the voice you chose.

Next steps

• Line up narrations with Up Next
• Control Narrator from the keyboard
• Choose a voice
• Share a narration
• Troubleshoot Narrator