Stop reading image file names

By PaulMartz, 20 November, 2023

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

When I receive an email newsletter with unlabeled images, VoiceOver often reads the image file name, which frequently uses a GUID. That means it says something like the following.

logo-d66e885305c022c01bba1b4a297d.png

I would like to turn this off, and instead have VoiceOver simply announce, "image." Does anyone know a setting to control this?

That has recently turned into a rather critical need, as I have quite a bit of research I need to conduct using the What Should I Read Next website. And this website prefixes every one of its search results with such unlabeled images. I figure I could reduce my research time by about a third if I could find a way to make VoiceOver stop reading these meaningless image file names.

All help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Comments

By PaulMartz on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

No ideas, huh? Maybe this would make a good suggestion for Apple's accessibility team.

These auto-generated file names are easy enough to navigate past when reading someone's email newsletter. But this website includes the image file name as the first part of a link anchor. What I actually want is the anchor text just past the image file name. I've tried navigating past the image file name with arrow or option+arrow, and that works, but it's slow because now I must read the anchor text a word at a time, and VO+Space doesn't activate the link.

Argh. I'll try contacting the website. Maybe they can add ALT text to the image, or move it to the end of the anchor text.

By Lee on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

Hi Paul,

This isn't just VO JAWS does exactly the same thing. Extremely annoying as I've never found a way of stopping this. Yes if Apple could make it that if image descriptions wouldn't describe the image then automatically it would not read the pointless numbers and letters but would say something like "unable to describe current image" and move on.

By PaulMartz on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

Thanks Brian. What I'm looking for is a setting to make VoiceOver simply say "image" (or say nothing at all) rather than read the file name. I can't seem to find this in VO Utility. I have already tried setting a custom verbosity for the Image element. But whether name is checked or not, VoiceOver reads the image file name.

Your comment gives me hope, though. If you can point me to a setting that controls how images are verbalized, let me know where you find it.

By PaulMartz on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

Appendix to my previous comment. I've set a custom verbosity to speak the type for image elements. And on every website I've tried, except the one I cited in the original post here, it works. But the WhatShouldIReadNext website stubbornly continues to speak the full file name.

By Brian on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

Can an Activity be setup so that the ignore images setting only takes effect on that particular website? The setting I am referring to, is found in VO Utility under:

Web > Navigation > Navigate images.

HTH.

By PaulMartz on Friday, November 24, 2023 - 17:20

I've set up an activity for that web page to not navigate images. This works great.

Previously, I had no activities. Now that I've added one, I immediately notice that a Command+Tab does not announce the name of the first app icon. If I delete the activity, app icons are announced as usual. This sounds like a familiar bug, but I can't find it discussed on AppleVis. I'll send it on to Apple Accessibility.