Outlook Read Aloud: where to find it in every version

Outlook Read Aloud is easy to find in classic Outlook and surprisingly hard to find everywhere else. In the new Outlook and on the web, the button moved inside a tool called Immersive Reader. On Mac and on your phone, Outlook has no reader of its own. Here is where to look in each version, and what to do when it is missing.

Where is Read Aloud in Outlook? Quick answer by version

Not sure which Outlook for Windows you have? Look in the top right corner. If there is a Settings button (a gear), you have the new Outlook. If not, you have classic Outlook.

Read Aloud in classic Outlook for Windows

Classic Outlook still has the original Read Aloud button, which reads an email like an audiobook, paragraph by paragraph.

Read an email in the reading pane

• Select the email in your inbox.
• On the Home tab, select Read Aloud. Reading starts right away, and small controls appear in the top right.
• Use Pause, Previous and Next to move between paragraphs, and Stop (the X) to close it.
• The gear icon in the controls changes the Reading speed and the voice.

Read an email opened in its own window

Double-click the email to open it. On the Message tab, in the Immersive section, select Read Aloud.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Ctrl + Alt + Space starts Read Aloud.
• Ctrl + Space plays or pauses.
• Ctrl + Left Arrow and Ctrl + Right Arrow jump to the previous or next paragraph.

Classic Outlook (version 2111 or later) also has Immersive Reader under View, then Immersive Reader. It opens a ribbon with reading options, including its own Read Aloud button.

Read Aloud in the new Outlook and Outlook on the web

If you switched to the new Outlook and the button vanished, you did not miss a setting. Microsoft's help page says the inline Read Aloud that played an email straight from the reading pane is “currently not supported” in the new Outlook or Outlook on the web. Reading aloud now lives inside Immersive Reader.

• Open or select the email you want to hear.
• Go to the View tab and select Immersive Reader. The email opens full screen in large text.
• Press Play at the bottom of the screen. Each word is highlighted as it is read.
• To start from a certain point, click that word.
• To leave, select Exit or press Esc.

The steps are the same in Outlook on the web, including a free Outlook.com account: sign in, open an email, then View, then Immersive Reader.

Shortcuts: Ctrl + Space plays or pauses, Tab and Shift + Tab move word by word, and Esc exits.

Outlook Immersive Reader, explained

Immersive Reader is a Microsoft reading tool built into Outlook, Word, OneNote and other Microsoft apps. It shows an email's text in a clean view and can read it aloud while highlighting each word.

It also lets you change how the text looks. The exact options depend on your Outlook version. Microsoft lists these for Outlook on Windows:

• Column Width makes lines shorter or longer.
• Page Color changes the background, which can reduce eye strain.
• Line Focus hides everything except one, three or five lines at a time.
• Text Spacing adds space between words, letters and lines.
• Syllables shows breaks between syllables.

Voice settings. In the new Outlook and on the web, the Voice settings button next to Play has a Voice Speed slider (Slow to Fast) and a Voice Selection list. The new Outlook also has a Reading Preference menu in the top right that can translate the email into another language, word by word or all at once.

Why Immersive Reader is missing: Microsoft accounts only

This catches a lot of people. In the new Outlook and Outlook on the web, Immersive Reader works for Microsoft email accounts: Outlook.com, Hotmail and Microsoft 365 work or school accounts. If you added a Gmail, Yahoo or other account to Outlook, the option does not appear when you are reading that account's email.

Microsoft's support pages do not spell this out, but answers on Microsoft's own Q&A forum confirm it: Immersive Reader is supported for Outlook.com and Exchange Online, not for other companies' email services, and adding it is not on Microsoft's public roadmap. For Gmail messages, see our Gmail read aloud guide.

Can Outlook read aloud while you write an email?

Hearing your own draft is a good way to catch mistakes. Whether you can depends on the version.

• Classic Outlook: yes. In a reply or new message window, go to the Review tab and select Read Aloud.
• New Outlook and the web: not while you are writing. Microsoft confirms this on its Q&A forum. A workaround people use: close the message so it saves to Drafts, open it from the Drafts folder, then choose View, then Immersive Reader.

On Windows you can also turn on Narrator, the built-in screen reader, with Windows logo key + Ctrl + Enter (press it again to stop). It reads whatever has focus, including buttons and menus, so it is better for short checks than long emails.

Outlook for Mac: use your Mac's Speak selection

Microsoft's help page on listening to email in Outlook for Mac does not describe a Read Aloud button or Immersive Reader. It points you to the Mac's built-in speech feature instead:

• Choose the Apple menu, then System Settings, then Accessibility.
• Click Read & Speak (called Spoken Content on older versions of macOS).
• Turn on Speak selection.
• In Outlook, select the text of an email and press Option + Esc. Press it again to stop.

If no text is selected, your Mac reads the text it can find in the current window. You can change the shortcut and turn on an on-screen controller for speed and skipping in the same settings.

Outlook on iPhone and Android

Outlook's mobile app used to have Play My Emails, which read your inbox aloud using Cortana. Microsoft retired it in June 2024, along with Cortana voice search in Outlook mobile. Microsoft's help pages list no read-aloud button to replace it.

Microsoft has since started rolling out a Copilot voice feature in Outlook mobile, as part of Microsoft 365 Copilot. It summarizes your unread emails and lets you flag or archive them by voice. That is a summary, not the email read in full.

To hear a whole email on your phone, use the phone's own tools inside the Outlook app:

• iPhone: turn on Speak Screen, open the email, and swipe down from the top with two fingers. Our Speak Screen guide has the full steps.
• Android: use Select to Speak from Accessibility settings. See the Android section of our read emails aloud guide.

Outlook Read Aloud missing or not working? Try these fixes

• No button in classic Outlook. Go to File, then Options, then Accessibility (called Ease of Access in some older versions), and check Show Read Aloud.
• No Immersive Reader in classic Outlook. It needs version 2111 or later. Update Office and look again under View.
• No Immersive Reader in the new Outlook. Check which account the email belongs to. It will not appear for Gmail or other non-Microsoft accounts.
• Still nothing. Microsoft suggests making sure you are signed in to your Microsoft 365 account, then restarting Outlook or signing out and back in.
• Wrong language or accent. Classic Read Aloud uses the email's proofing language. Microsoft has a help article on fixing text-to-speech that reads in the wrong language.

Listen to Outlook email on the go

Immersive Reader is great at a desk. It is less handy on a walk or a commute: it lives on a computer, reads one email at a time, and starts over if you close it. If you want to listen to your email, Spokeninbox is an app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web built for exactly that.

• You get a private address, like you@in.spokeninbox.com.
• You forward email to it from Outlook: everything with auto-forwarding, just some senders with a rule, or one email by hand. Spokeninbox never logs in to your mailbox, and it works with any account, Gmail included.
• You press Play. Each email is read in a natural voice, with buttons, ads, legal footers and raw links removed.
• It keeps playing with your phone locked, with lock-screen controls, and remembers exactly where you stopped in every email.
• It speaks English, Spanish and Russian, picking the right voice for each email.

For every other way to hear your email, see our guide to having emails read aloud.

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