Incoming email notifications
Speaking Email FAQ | Home | All FAQsQ: Does the app read out notifications?
A: No. Speaking Email is not a notification speaking app. There are a number of apps on Android that do this, such as PingLoud, Out Loud App, ReadLOUD, ReadItToMe. These apps activate on a notification of a new email or message and speak the notification.
This is only possible on Android, not on iPhone, and we are wanting to avoid features that only work on one platform.
Speaking Email is designed with a different use case in mind. It is designed for reviewing your inbox, listening to emails with smart content extraction, replying and managing mail by voice. When new email arrives, Speaking Email will read it out, but this is only when the app is active in playing mode.
If you don't want Speaking Email to read your inbox and would rather it only waited for new incoming email, you can do this by saying the command "incoming". This displays the "waiting for incoming mail" screen. The app will avoid going to sleep so that it can stay active and monitor for email as long as you don't switch to another app. However, this is not designed to work in the background.
When Speaking Email is the background it is not monitoring for new emails, meaning it does not use any bandwidth or battery, and will not wake up and spontaneously start speaking. It does not hook into the Android mail notifications. If you are looking for this feature, please download one of the apps mentioned above that speak Android notifications.
What is Speaking Email?
An app for iPhone and Android that reads your email out loud to you. It intelligently extracts content from emails (minus the signatures, disclaimers and threads). And it lets you action your email - archive, mark-as-read, trash, flag - using voice commands or on-screen buttons. It works with Microsoft 365 (aka Office, Outlook) and Gmail email accounts, as well as most other providers including any standard IMAP server.
Who is it for?
People who are busy and run out of time to get through their inbox. People who want to make productive use of time when driving to work. People with blindness, vision problems, or other disabilities who cannot see or type and want to be able to hear, reply to, and compose emails by voice.
Does it work on Apple CarPlay?
See our other product Speaking Email CarPlay if you have CarPlay.
Is is free?
Yes it is free to download the basic edition. Free features:
- Email text-to-speech (TTS) with smart content detection (this is awesome, you will be blown away!)
- On-screen buttons for basic actions next/prev, archive, flag
Do I have to upgrade?
Nope, but you can upgrade for:
- Multiple accounts
- Attachment reading
- Voice commands (you will love this!)
- Dictation - reply/forward/compose (you will love this even more!)