Make Your Mountain Lion Mac Announce The Time And Act Like A Town Crier [OS X Tips]

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The Fred voice sounds like that Radiohead song.
The Fred voice sounds like that Radiohead song.

Do you find yourself getting lost in activities on your computer, forgetting to check the time, missing appointments, even? If you get lost in a video game or Facebook surfing session often, you might consider having your Mac announce the time out loud, like a town crier in the days of old.

All it takes is a quick trip into the System Preferences. That, and the ability to have the sound up on your Mac while you’re working at it. Otherwise, if a Mac speaks the time in a speaker-off situation, does it really exist? Wait. Scratch that.

Launch System preferences from the Applications folder or the Apple Menu. Click on the icon that looks like a clock with a calendar page to open the Date & Time preference pane. Then click on the Clock button in the upper right. You’re able to enable or disable the menu bar clock here, changing these options as well.

Click on Announce the time pop-up menu, and choose On the hour, On the half hour, or On the quarter hour to have your Mac speak the time aloud at these specific intervals. Click on the Customize Voice… button to the right to choose a specific text-to-speech voice from your Mac system. I’m a big fan of Alex, but you can choose whichever voice you prefer. If you really want to see all the voices on your system, click on the Customize button under the list of voices and click to your heart’s content.

Now, when the interval of time has been reached, your Mac will helpfully tell you what time it is. “It is 6:15 p.m.” is a much nicer thing to hear than, “Dude, you’re late again!”

Are you using OS X Mountain Lion? Got a tip you want to share with us? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.

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