Android TalkBack: How to Turn On and Use the Built-In Screen Reader

TalkBack is a free accessibility feature built into every Android phone and tablet. When TalkBack is turned on, your phone speaks aloud the name of everything you touch — buttons, text, icons, menus, and notifications. This makes the phone fully usable for people who are blind, have low vision, or find it difficult to read small text on a screen.

With TalkBack running, you interact with your phone differently than usual. Instead of tapping once to open an app, you tap once to hear what it is, then double-tap to open it. To scroll, you use two fingers instead of one. This new way of navigating takes a little practice, but it is logical and consistent once you learn the pattern.

To turn on TalkBack, you typically go to Settings → Accessibility → TalkBack and toggle it on. On some phones you can activate it even faster with a shortcut: press and hold both volume buttons at the same time for three seconds. Google provides a built-in TalkBack tutorial that teaches you the gestures step by step — it is a great place to start.

TalkBack also reads text messages out loud when they arrive, speaks the time when you unlock your phone, and reads web pages aloud. Combined with Google Assistant, it makes it possible to send messages, make phone calls, set reminders, and search the internet entirely by voice.

If you need to share your phone with someone who does not use TalkBack, turning it off uses the same accessibility shortcut — press and hold both volume buttons for three seconds, or go back to Settings → Accessibility → TalkBack and toggle it off.

Note: The exact location of TalkBack settings may vary slightly depending on your phone model and Android version, but it is always found under Accessibility in Settings.