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On most apps on my iPhone (running iOS 13) when I select some text there’s an option to “Speak” the selected text which works fine. However in the Messages app when I long press on a message and choose “Speak” nothing happens. I’ve noticed this issue with two of my friend's phones as well. Any idea how to fix this?

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  • I am still interested in the solution, but as a workaround, you can copy the text of any message into the input box (where you would enter a new message) at the bottom and then select all of it and listen to it that way.
    – David Eldridge
    Feb 9, 2020 at 14:29
  • I have been experiencing this for months now. And it seems to coincide with a similar problem in Messages where touching a new message notification will open Messages but will not take you directly into the message. I tried reinstalling from factory settings. I was unsuccessful. The problem persists. I suspect that it may be related to the fact that I have too many messages. I think I have messages from further back than five years. And it could be that iOS is choking on such a large volume. Is your situation at all similar?
    – David Eldridge
    Feb 9, 2020 at 14:32
  • I do have the "keep messages forever" setting turned on so I might have a large number of messages (including older ones).
    – user280023
    Feb 10, 2020 at 17:57

2 Answers 2

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It seems that the update to iOS 13.4.1 solves the problem with the failure to speak selection.

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    You’re right! Didn’t think to check since it’s been broken for so long. Glad it’s finally fixed.
    – user280023
    Apr 23, 2020 at 15:07
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I went into the accessibility settings within the settings in iOS. Under speak selection, I turned the feature off and then turned it back on. And now it works. You might give that a try:

Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > ...

Turn off “Speak Selection”, and turn it back on.

That seemed to do the trick.

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  • Thanks for the suggestion, I tried that and unfortunately it didn't work for me. Glad to hear it worked for you though!
    – user280023
    Feb 10, 2020 at 17:56
  • This “fix” seemed to be temporary, and would revert to its “broken” state through circumstances that I don’t have the time or inclination to troubleshoot. And now that I have updated iOS to the new version (13.4.1) it seems to be resolved. So, I couldn’t troubleshoot it if I wanted to.
    – David Eldridge
    Apr 23, 2020 at 15:11

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