How to Add More Text-to-Speech Natural Voices to Chrome

If you use HoverSpeak with Chrome on Windows, you may notice a smaller set of voices than you'd like, especially if cloud voices are turned off in HoverSpeak. This guide shows you how to add more Google natural voices and languages to Chrome, then make them available in HoverSpeak.

The first thing you might think is that you can simply go to Settings > Languages and add additional languages there, expecting the accompanying voices to be included. However, it’s not quite that simple. In practice, adding additional languages to Chrome as of this writing is done in a completely different location.

Step-by-Step: Add Additional Google Cloud Voices to Chrome

Currently the only way of adding additional cloud voices to Chrome is by enabling a Chrome flag. Chrome flags are the pre-release experimental features of Chrome that are not yet available. We will turn one of them on using the steps below.

1) Enable Read-aloud Experimental Chrome Feature

Open a new tab and go to chrome://flags.
Enter the search field, and search for "Reading Mode Read Aloud".
Change the setting to Enabled.
Once you set this flag to enable, a restart button will appear, click it for the settings to take effect. Clicking Restart will restart your browser leaving your open tabs as they were.

Chrome flags settings with Reading Mode Read Aloud enabled — Click to enlarge

2) Open Reading mode

On any article-style page: right-click → Open in reading mode to open the side-panel.

3) Add the language and voices you need

In the Reading mode toolbar, click the Voice Selection icon (it looks like an open mouth talking).
From the drop down select the Languages option.
Turn on the languages you want. Chrome will download Google natural voices for those languages.

Chrome reading mode language selection interface — Click to enlarge

4) Pick the new voices inside HoverSpeak

Open HoverSpeak's options and choose your preferred voice. If the new voice is a remote or cloud voice, turn on HoverSpeak's cloud voices toggle first; HoverSpeak hides remote/cloud voices while that toggle is off.

Tips & Notes

Important: if Chrome completely restarts, it will usually remove the languages and voices we've added.Reopen the "Reading mode" sidebar (Right-click and select "Open in Reading mode") and the languages and voices would be added back automatically.
Why not Settings → Languages? That area manages Chrome’s UI/translation, not the provisioning of natural TTS voices—those come from Reading mode → Voice → Languages….
Prefer a broader set out of the box? HoverSpeak’s site notes that Edge typically exposes more voices by default; that’s an alternative if you don’t want to change flags in Chrome.
Cloud voice filter: HoverSpeak shows remote/cloud voices only when its cloud voices toggle is enabled.

Summary

To add more natural voices in Chrome, enable the Reading Mode Read Aloud flag, open Reading mode, turn on the languages you need, and then select the new voices in HoverSpeak. If a voice is classified as remote or cloud-based, enable cloud voices in HoverSpeak before looking for it in the voice list. If Chrome removes the downloaded voices after a full restart, reopen the Reading mode sidebar and Chrome should restore them.