Adjusting Basic Voice Over Options

VoiceOver can be customized in many ways, including its voice, speaking rate, audio behavior, verbosity, navigation style, and other accessibility settings. The sections below describe several useful options found in the iPhone VoiceOver settings.

Adjust the Volume of VoiceOver Speech and Sounds

Use the iPhone volume buttons to raise or lower the overall audio volume, including VoiceOver speech and sounds.
To reduce other audio while VoiceOver is speaking, go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Audio > Audio Ducking. Choose When Speaking, then adjust the Ducking Amount.
Under VoiceOver > Audio, you can also adjust Sounds & Haptics, automatic speaker selection during calls, and audio routing to connected HDMI devices.

Set the VoiceOver Language

VoiceOver normally uses the primary language selected for the iPhone. To change it, go to Settings > General > Language & Region.
You can use the VoiceOver rotor to switch to a voice for another language.
To let VoiceOver detect text in another language automatically, go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech and turn on Detect Languages.

Apple Support: Languages supported by VoiceOver

Change the Speaking Voice

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver.
Tap Speech.
To change the primary voice, select the current primary voice and then choose a different voice.
To add another voice for use with the rotor, choose Add Rotor Voice.

Adjust the Speaking Voice

Speaking Rate: Adjust the Speaking Rate slider in VoiceOver settings.
Pitch: Open Speech, select a voice, and adjust its pitch. You can also enable Pitch Change.
Pronunciations: Go to Speech > Pronunciations to tell VoiceOver how particular words or names should be spoken.

Set How Much VoiceOver Tells You

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Verbosity. From there you can control such things as:

How punctuation is spoken.
How VoiceOver reads system notifications.
Whether VoiceOver speaks hints, uppercase letters, embedded links, rotor confirmations, and other information.

Customize VoiceOver Settings for an Activity

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Activities.
Choose an existing activity or select Add Activity.
Adjust the settings you want for speech, audio, verbosity, typing, navigation, braille, and other options.
Under Automatic Switching, choose the apps or contexts where those settings should be used.

Use Flat or Grouped Navigation

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Navigation Style.

Flat: VoiceOver moves through each item on the screen one at a time.
Grouped: VoiceOver moves through groups of items. Use a two-finger swipe right to move into a group and a two-finger swipe left to move out of a group.

Set a Delay Before VoiceOver Selects an Item

If accidental touches are a problem, go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Delay before Selection and increase or decrease the delay.

Adjust VoiceOver Visuals

Under Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver, you can turn on options such as:

Large Cursor: Makes the VoiceOver focus outline larger and thicker.
Caption Panel: Shows the text spoken by VoiceOver at the bottom of the screen.

Use Quick Settings

When VoiceOver is on, a two-finger quadruple tap opens VoiceOver Quick Settings. To choose which options appear there, go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Quick Settings.