Introduction
Apple allows many different voice styles, dialects, and languages for the operating system to speak the time on the hour, half hour, or quarter hour. Once added, these additional languages, and their advanced more natural versions, take up a lot of space on the hard drive.
A Google search for instructions on how to remove these languages results in incorrect information that will instruct you to remove system files unnecessarily and permanently delete language options. Once deleted, it won’t be easy to get them back if you ever want them. This document describes the proper method of adding and removing voices.
Setting the Language for Time Announcements
To set your computer to speak the time, click on the time and select Open Date & Time Preferences as shown below.
You’ll be presented with the Date & Time settings screen as shown below.
If you click on Customize Voice you’ll see the voice customization settings as shown below.
When you click on the Voice drop-down menu, you can select from a variety of English voices as well as other language voices (depending on what’s installed and available).
In the list above, some of the highest quality English and Spanish voices are shown as installed.
At the bottom of the list you’ll see an option to Customize. Choosing this option lets you add or remove voices from the speech system. Placing a checkmark next to a voice installs it for use. You can choose standard or high quality voices.
Removing Voice Files
Removing a check-mark after selecting Customize (described above) will let you delete the files associated with that voice.
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