Voiceover does not speak even if restarting by command + F5

By Mitsuo Suzuki, 18 March, 2026

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello,
I just bought Mac Book Air last Sunday. It was my first Mac and enjoyed voiceover tutorial and browsing web using Safari.
When I was browsing web using keyboard and trackpad, voiceover suddenly spoke "voiceover will stop speech" and no longer spoke.
I had no idea how I can make voiceover speak again. It did not help to restart voiceover by pressing command key and F5 key, voiceover spoke "stop speech" as soon as it spoke "voiceover on" and it became silent again.
I seeked Mac voiceover guide using another Windows PC, then I found there is a gesture for trackpad to turn on speech, it was double tap trackpad by 3 fingers. Finally I succeeded to make voiceover speak again by this gesture.
Question is that why voiceover does not speak by restarting voiceover. If it is iPhone, voiceover speak by restarting with triple click home button or side button even if speech was turned off by double tap with 3 fingers. Do you have any idea?

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Comments

By Maldalain on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 15:41

To get your trackpad gestures up and running, just hold down Control + Option and do a two-finger clockwise rotation on the pad. Once VoiceOver is live, you can quickly toggle the sound by double-tapping with three fingers. Usually, VoiceOver is pretty good about remembering your volume—if you left it unmuted, it’ll start up unmuted. The only time that won’t happen is if you’re using a specific
Activity that has a "mute" rule baked into its settings, which will keep things quiet even if you didn't mean to.

By Mitsuo Suzuki on Thursday, March 19, 2026 - 02:10

Thanks for your comment. But it makes me confusing voiceover keep quiet even if restart it. When voiceover suddenly quiet with uncertain reason, it comes to my mind to try restarting voiceover as troubleshooting and see if voiceover speaks again. OK, it speaks "voiceover on" after restarting although it also speaks "speech off" at the same time. I just add my check list to try double tap trackpad with 3 fingers to see if it speaks again.

By Brian on Thursday, March 19, 2026 - 04:58

As stated above, hold your VO keys, press two fingers to your trackpad, and rotate them clockwise, like doing the rotor gesture on iPhone. You may or may not hear a sound effect. Regardless, once you have performed this gesture, double tap the trackpad with three fingers. Note, do not press down on the trackpad, just slightly double tap on it with three fingers. You should hear VoiceOver announce that it is unmuted or something to that effect. This will fix VoiceOver speech for you.
Best of luck. 🙂