The TalkBack menu and reading controls help you manage settings, use controls, and take action with TalkBack. Reading controls help you manage settings like how fast TalkBack speaks and whether it reads by character, line, or paragraph.
Use the TalkBack menu
Open the TalkBack menu
- On devices with multi-finger gestures: Three-finger tap. Or, in one motion, swipe down then right.
- On devices without multi-finger gestures (prior to updated Android 11 with TalkBack 9.1): In one motion, swipe down then right.
Customize menu options
- Open TalkBack settings.
- Select Customize menus.
- Select Customize TalkBack menu.
The TalkBack menu includes these options by default:
- Read from focused item: From the last focused item, hear the items on the screen.
- Copy last spoken phrase: Copy the last spoken phrase. Then, you can paste it in another app or take other actions on it.
- Spoken language. If you’ve installed more than one language, change the text-to-speech language.
- Screen search: Search the screen with a search term.
- Hide or show screen: To improve privacy when you’re around other people, hide your display.
- Voice commands: Speak a command for TalkBack to complete.
- TalkBack settings: Open TalkBack Settings.
- Text to speech settings: Open text-to-speech settings.
- Braille settings: Open Braille settings.
Based on where focus is placed, you may hear different options that respond to the focus. For example:
- Actions
- Edit options
- Links
- Add label or edit label
Use reading controls
Reading controls let you change how you navigate your screen. You can manage settings like how fast TalkBack speaks and whether it reads character to character or line to line.
Open reading controls
- On devices with multi-finger gestures: Three-finger swipe up or down. Or, single-finger swipe up then down, or down then up.
- On devices without multi-finger gestures (prior to updated Android 11 with TalkBack 9.1): Swipe up then down, or down then up.
Customize reading controls
- Open TalkBack settings.
- Select Customize menus.
- Select Customize reading controls.
Reading controls includes these options by default:
- Characters: Read character by character.
- To read the next character: Swipe down.
- To read the previous character: Swipe up.
- Words: Read word by word.
- To read the next word: Swipe down
- To read the previous word: Swipe up.
- Lines: Read one line at a time.
- To read the next line: Swipe down.
- To read the previous line: Swipe up.
- Paragraphs: Read one paragraph at a time.
- To read the next paragraph: Swipe down.
- To read the previous paragraph: Swipe up.
- Headings: Jump to the next or previous heading, if available.
- Controls: Jump to the next or previous items, like buttons, checkboxes, or text fields.
- Links: Jump to the next or previous link.
- Speech rate: Change how fast TalkBack speaks.
- To make it faster: Swipe up.
- To make it slower: Swipe down.
- Spoken language: Change text-to-speech language, if you’ve installed more than one text-to-speech language.
- Screen search: Search the screen with a search term.
- To go to the next screen search result, swipe down.
- To go to the previous screen search result, swipe up.
Tip: You can also search your screen headings. Learn how to search your screen with TalkBack.
For more help with Talkback, contact the Google Disability Support team.