---
title: Read messages aloud
path: tutorials/power-user/read-messages-aloud
status: published
---

```json frontmatter
{
  "title": "Read messages aloud",
  "audience": "power_user",
  "summary": "Have any chat message spoken aloud via TTS — with chunked streaming for long messages.",
  "sort_order": 11
}
```

# Read messages aloud

Any message in a chat can be read aloud by clicking the speaker
icon in the message action toolbar. Long messages stream audio in
chunks — you hear the first sentence within a second, even for
paragraph-length replies.

## How to use

1. Hover over any message in the chat timeline.
2. In the action toolbar that appears, click the **🔊 speaker icon**.
3. The icon changes to a spinning loader while audio is fetched,
   then to a stop square while playing.
4. Click the stop square to stop playback at any time.

## How it works

ScaiWave splits the message into sentence-sized chunks and
synthesizes them in parallel via ScaiSpeak. Playback starts as soon
as the first chunk is ready — you don't wait for the whole message.
Subsequent chunks queue seamlessly.

For multi-chunk messages, the tooltip shows progress
("Stop reading (2/5)").

## Voice selection

The voice used for read-aloud follows the same resolution chain as
voice calls:

1. Your personal default (Settings → Voice)
2. Tenant default (set by admin)
3. First available voice

## Caching

Clicking the same message again replays from cache — no re-synthesis
needed within the session. Changing your default voice clears the
cache so new playback uses the new voice.

## Style consistency

A consistent style instruction is applied to every chunk:

> "Calm, consistent conversational tone. Natural pacing. Maintain
> the same style across sentences as a continuous passage."

This prevents the TTS engine from varying its delivery between
sentences of the same message.

## Markdown stripping

Messages with markdown formatting (bold, italics, headings, bullet
points) are stripped to plain text before synthesis. The TTS engine
never reads "asterisk asterisk" aloud.

## Where to go next

- [Voice settings](/docs/scaiwave/tutorials/power-user/voice-settings) — change the voice
- [Talk to your AI](/docs/scaiwave/tutorials/beginner/talk-to-your-ai) — live conversations