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How to use text to speech on TikTok

Have your favorite character or AI speech bot narrate your videos.
By
August 4, 2023

If you’ve been watching enough TikToks, you’ve undoubtedly seen videos where a cheerful AI voice reads its text to you. It’s a actually helpful accessibility feature for people with visual impairments, meant to let them watch TikToks without struggling with reading. Here’s how to use text-to-speech on TikTok and choose which speech bot you want to narrate your videos.

QUICK ANSWER

To use text-to-speech on TikTok:

  1. Tap Text while editing your video.
  2. Type in your caption, and tap the Speech icon.
  3. Select one of the voice options and tap Done.

How to do text-to-speech on TikTok

To implement text-to-speech on your next TikTok, record or upload a video as usual until you arrive at the editing stage. Select the “Aa” icon to add text to your video.

tiktok text icon
Adam Birney / Android Authority

Type in the message you want the AI to read aloud, then select text-to-speech with the third icon from the left, which looks like a talking head. After selecting the icon, you should see a small checkmark beside it to indicate that text-to-speech has been enabled.

tiktok text to speech icon
Adam Birney / Android Authority

To change the voice for text-to-speech, select your text and tap Change voice.

change tiktok text to voice
Adam Birney / Android Authority

You’ll then see a selection of the most popular voices. Some voices are seasonal, and some stay on the app forever. Tap on each of them to hear how your text will sound.

tiktok text to speech voice selection
Adam Birney / Android Authority

Tap Done in the top-right corner when you’ve selected your favorite voice. If you like how it sounds, save the audio clip for later use in future videos.


FAQs

Tap the text on your video and select Change voice to choose a different speech bot.

In May 2021, TikTok changed the default voice in North America. The original voice actor, Beverly Standing, sued ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, for using her voice without permission.

Ensure that you have the latest version of the TikTok app installed. Older versions don’t have all the text-to-speech features.