唔該晒你今日嘅幫忙，聽日見！
Cantonese · Sinji · just nowThe problem
Speak Selection stops where modern apps begin
macOS has read text aloud since 2005 — select, press ⌥⎋, listen. But it depends on the app exposing its text through the accessibility tree, and a growing class of GPU-rendered apps simply doesn’t.
Warp
Warp draws its terminal with its own GPU renderer and exposes no accessibility tree, so Speak Selection hears nothing. Users have been asking since 2022.
VS Code
Electron apps render text inside a web view the system can’t always see into. Speak Selection frequently reads nothing — or the wrong thing — in the editor.
Figma
Canvas-rendered design tools paint their own text. To the accessibility APIs the selection doesn’t exist, so “Speak Selection” has nothing to speak.
But ⌘C works in every one of them — every app ever made implements Copy. ClipSpeak turns copying into hearing.
Troubleshooting Speak Selection? Start with the real fixes →
廣東話 · Hero feature
Copy Chinese. Hear Cantonese.
macOS ships a genuine Cantonese voice — Sinji — but Speak Selection can’t pick it automatically. ClipSpeak detects the script of whatever you copy and chooses the voice for you, per snippet.
唔使急，最緊要快。
CantoneseTraditional Chinese · Sinji voice
明天早上九点见。
MandarinSimplified Chinese · Tingting voice
お疲れ様でした。 / 감사합니다.
Auto-detectedJapanese, Korean and more — picked per snippet
⌥⌘V
Every copy, kept — and spoken
ClipSpeak doubles as a clipboard history that talks. Press ⌥⌘V and everything you’ve copied is right there.
- Click any past item to hear it. That address you copied an hour ago? One click, spoken back.
- Search everything. Type a few letters to find any snippet you’ve copied.
- Favorite the keepers. Star the snippets you reuse so they never scroll away.
- Toggle speech on and off. In a meeting? Flip the menu bar switch — history keeps recording quietly.
Privacy
Nothing leaves your Mac
Reading what you copy is an intimate job. ClipSpeak treats it that way.
- 100% on-device. Speech uses Apple’s built-in voices. No cloud, no server, zero network calls.
- Passwords are never spoken or stored. Copies marked confidential by password managers are ignored entirely.
- No account, no analytics, no tracking. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing phoning home.
- History stays local — and clearable. Stored only on your Mac, deletable any time.
Pricing
US$4.99. Once.
Text to speech shouldn’t be a subscription.
Typical Mac read-aloud apps
$9.99–$29.99or a monthly subscription
- Subscriptions for premium voices
- Cloud processing of your text
- Accounts and sign-ins
- Still broken where Speak Selection is broken
ClipSpeak
$4.99 once, forever
- Speaks every copy, in every app
- Auto Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean & more
- Searchable copy history with favorites
- 100% on-device — no cloud, no account
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly
Why does macOS ask permission for ClipSpeak to read the pasteboard?
Recent versions of macOS alert you when an app reads what you’ve copied — a good privacy feature. Reading your copies is ClipSpeak’s entire job, so allow it once and you’re set. Everything it reads stays on your Mac: no network calls, no cloud, and the privacy policy is one page.
Does it work in Warp?
Yes — that’s why ClipSpeak exists. Warp exposes no accessibility tree, so Apple’s Speak Selection can’t read it (open issues #7139 and #10954, unfixed since 2022). ClipSpeak never asks the app for its text — it listens to ⌘C, which works in Warp, VS Code, Figma, and everything else.
Will it read my passwords out loud?
No. Password managers mark their copies as confidential, and ClipSpeak honors that: those copies are never spoken and never saved to history.
How does it know Cantonese from Mandarin?
By script. Traditional Chinese is spoken in Cantonese with the Sinji voice; Simplified Chinese is spoken in Mandarin. Japanese, Korean, and other languages are detected and voiced automatically, per snippet.
Does it need the internet?
No. Speech uses Apple’s voices built into macOS, entirely on-device. ClipSpeak works the same on a plane as at your desk, and makes zero network calls either way.
Is it really $4.99 — no subscription?
Really. US$4.99 on the Mac App Store, one time, yours forever. Comparable read-aloud apps charge $9.99–$29.99 or a monthly fee; ClipSpeak charges once.
Can I stop it talking without quitting?
Yes — the menu bar switch turns speech off instantly. Your copy history keeps working quietly, and one click turns the voice back on.
Which voices does it use? Can I get nicer ones?
ClipSpeak uses whichever Apple voices are installed on your Mac. You can download higher-quality versions free in System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices — here’s a walkthrough.