How to have your emails read aloud

Siri: sender and subject only

Only partly. Say “Read me my emails” and Siri reads the time, sender and subject of each unread message, not the message itself. To hear the full text you ask for it one email at a time, and it only reads from Apple's Mail app.

Siri is fine for checking who wrote to you. It is not a good way to get through your email. What Siri reads, the commands that work, and what to do when it only reads subjects.

Read emails aloud on iPhone with Speak Screen

Speak Screen is an accessibility feature built into every iPhone. It reads whatever is on the screen, so it works in Mail, Gmail, Outlook and any other email app.

• Turn it on in Settings, under Accessibility, then Read & Speak (called Spoken Content in iOS 18 and older).
• Open an email and swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers. A small panel lets you pause, skip and change the speed.

Our full Speak Screen guide covers Speak Selection, the iPad, and how to turn it off when it will not stop.

Have Outlook read emails aloud

Where the button lives depends on which Outlook you have:

• Classic Outlook for Windows: select an email, then Home and Read Aloud.
• New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web: open the email, then View, Immersive Reader and Play. It works for Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 accounts, not for Gmail or other accounts added to Outlook.
• Outlook on iPhone and Android: the old Play My Emails feature was retired in 2024. Use your phone's own reader instead.

See Outlook Read Aloud: where it went in new Outlook for every version, the Mac, and what to do when the button is missing.

Gmail: use Chrome or your phone

No. Gmail has no read-aloud button on the web or in its apps. On a computer, open the email in Chrome, right-click it and choose Open in reading mode, then press Play. On a phone, use Speak Screen on iPhone or Select to Speak on Android. More ways to have Gmail read aloud.

Read emails aloud on Android

• Select to Speak: open Settings, then Accessibility, then Select to Speak, and turn on the shortcut. In any email app, tap the shortcut, then tap or drag over the text you want read.
• Read selected text: on many phones you can select text, then tap More and Read aloud in the pop-up menu, without turning anything on.
• Google's Reading mode app: install Reading mode from the Play Store, turn on its shortcut, open an email in Gmail and tap the shortcut. It does not work on every email, but when it does it reads just the message.

Where built-in tools fall short

All of these work for one email, while you hold your phone. They get awkward when you want to get through your inbox on a walk or a commute:

• They read everything on the screen. Legal disclaimers, unsubscribe links, raw web addresses and menu buttons all get read out.
• They read one email at a time. You open a message, start reading, then go back and do it again for the next one.
• They forget where you were. Stop halfway through a long email and you start again from the top.
• The voices are flat. Fine for a short note, tiring for a long newsletter.

Listen to your whole inbox with Spokeninbox

Spokeninbox is an app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web built for listening to email, not reading it. Spokeninbox never logs in to your mailbox. Instead:

• You get a private address, like you@in.spokeninbox.com.
• You forward email to it. Set up Gmail or Outlook to forward everything, use a filter to send only some messages, or forward one email by hand. The app walks you through it.
• You press Play. Each email is read in a natural voice, with buttons, ads, legal footers and raw links stripped out.
• It keeps going 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.

More guides

• Listen to your newsletters: turn Substack and other newsletters into audio.
• Too many emails? A practical way to get through them.
• Reading with ADHD: why listening helps, and other tips.
• Speechify alternative for email and newsletters.
• Speaking Email alternative that never logs in to your inbox.

Questions