How to Use Announce Time in macOS Big Sur

It can be difficult to keep track of time when you are working from home. Sure, when you are stuck on a project you can easily forget to even look at the clock in the menu bar in your macOS. macOS offers users much more advanced features and new features than other operating systems. 

It helps to be aware of the time of day as well as to manage the time of day. Another advantage is being able to do the work they are doing efficiently.

But unfortunately, many users are not aware of some features that have been around for a long time. One feature that has been around for so long is that the macOS announces the time. Unfortunately, users cannot find that feature in the usual location of the macOS Big Sur. So, this tutorial focuses on how to activate the time notification announcing feature in macOS Big Sur in 11.0.1. 

Let’s jump… 

• How to Enable / Disable Announce Time in macOS Big Sur
• How to Customise Announce Time Voice in Mac
• How to Automatically Mute Your Mac at Night

How to Enable / Disable Announce Time in macOS Big Sur

• Click on Dock & Menu Bar in System Preferences

• Scroll down and Select Clock on the left pane

• At the bottom of the window, you will find an option to enable or disable the ‘announce the time’.

• You can set the time interval you want to announce here. Time adjustments can be made here for hours, half hours, or quarterly.

How to Customise Announce Time Voice in Mac

Now that you have the time announcement enabled, you can still customize the voice. 

• Click on Dock & Menu Bar in System Preferences
• Scroll down and Select Clock on the left pane
• At the bottom of the window, you will find an option to Customise Voice… under the announce the time.

• Click on the Voice dropdown.
• You can see the installed voices and select one of these, or further, you can select Customise…

• From that list, you can select which voice you want to use. If you want to get a natural voice, you can choose the “upgrade to enhanced quality” option.

How to Automatically Mute Your Mac at Night

After enabling the aforementioned option, it issues announcements even when you are asleep at night. So, you need to get rid of what is disturbing your sleep. It can be fixed using the mac apps called Keyboard Maestro.

• Open Keyboard Maestro and select Global Macro Group on the sidebar.

• Click on the plus (+) icon to create a new Macro.

• Name your Macro like Auto Mute. Then, click on the New Trigger.

• Select Time of Day Trigger from the dropdown list.

• Set the time required to activate the trigger as well as set the days you need to automate. Ex: I’m setting it at 23:00. 

• Then, click on New Action.

• Then, select System Actions in categories, and to add it to your automation, double click Toggle System Sound Mute.

Done, it will run at 23:00 on the days you selected and it will mute your Mac at night. 

Finally, the automatic announce time feature is a fantastic way to track your day. It’s a very useful feature because it reminds you when to do something. So, are you going to use time announcements in macOS Big Sur? Let us know your thoughts.