Discord TTS Bot Commands: /tts, Slash Commands and Voice Controls

The short answer. “TTS bot commands” means two different things on Discord. The first is Discord’s built-in /tts command: type /tts hello and members who have text-to-speech enabled for that channel hear Discord read “hello” aloud. The second is the set of slash commands a dedicated TTS bot ships, typically a speak command (/say or /speak), plus stop, skip, set-voice, volume, and cooldown controls. Exact names vary from bot to bot, so this page is a command reference for both: what each command does, who can run it, and examples you can copy. Where lists differ, you get a pointer to Interaction Bot’s own commands and setup.

Discord’s built-in /tts: what it does and what limits it

Discord’s text-to-speech is a first-party feature. You type /tts before a sentence and Discord reads that sentence aloud, exactly as its official help article describes: to read “Discord’s pretty awesome”, you type /tts Discord's pretty awesome. Three things decide whether anybody actually hears you.

1. The server’s role permission. Sending a /tts message is gated by a server permission Discord’s permissions reference calls Send Text-to-Speech Messages (SEND_TTS_MESSAGES). An admin grants it per role, and Discord notes that denying the base Send Messages permission implicitly denies /tts too.
2. The listener’s notification choice. Under User Settings, then Notifications, then Text-to-Speech, each member picks one of three options: “For all channels” (every message across every server is read aloud, /tts or not), “For current selected channel”, or “Never”. If a member has this set to Never, they will not hear your /tts messages no matter what you did.
3. The listener’s accessibility setting. Under User Settings, App Settings, Accessibility, the “Text to speech rate” area holds the toggle that turns the /tts command on or off for that user, plus the reading speed.

The voice is not something you choose. Discord’s official documentation says TTS follows your system settings, which is why the same message sounds different through a Chrome or Firefox browser than through the Windows or macOS app. The built-in feature also speaks through Discord’s own TTS stream for eligible listeners, not into a shared voice channel the whole room hears, and that is the gap a dedicated TTS bot fills. Interaction Bot’s comparison of Discord TTS bots versus the built-in /tts command explains the distinction in detail. Tongbos_EN’s short tutorial, “How to Use Text to Speech on Discord: TTS Commands & Settings Tutorial!”, walks through exactly these pieces: enabling TTS, using the /tts command, and changing the settings, which is how the toggles above look in practice as of September 2026.

The command set a TTS bot typically exposes

A TTS bot is an app a server admin invites, which then connects to a voice channel and reads accepted text there as shared audio. The path is consistent: a member types text or uses a slash command, the bot checks its channel, role, and command rules, a speech engine turns the text into audio, and the bot queues and plays it in the voice channel. There is no universal command standard, but the same five or six jobs recur under different names. Run the bot’s /help command for its exact list; on Interaction Bot, /help prints the full command list, per its official command documentation.

Where a bot combines TTS with translation, the commands usually follow the same verb-plus-arguments pattern Interaction Bot uses for its translation side: /translate <message> <language>, /detect <message>, /languages, and /config for options. If a bot’s TTS command is its own, the message goes to whatever channel the bot is configured to speak into, which is why admins pair a text channel like #voice-text with a voice channel.

Who can run each command: roles and permissions

The two layers have different gates.

For Discord’s own /tts: the sender needs the Send Text-to-Speech Messages role permission, which a server admin controls per role in the server’s role settings. On the receiving side, every member controls what they hear through the two settings above, independent of what the sender did. That is the whole server-side control: Discord does not give bots or admins a way to force members to hear something they have muted.

For a TTS bot: inviting the bot is the first permission step, because the authorization screen shows what the bot may do on the server. After that, the bot’s own rules apply. The setup guide for adding a TTS bot to a Discord server points out the practical guardrails: admins configure which channels and roles may use the speak command, set the default language, voice, and volume, impose cooldowns and message-length limits, and reserve stop or disconnect commands for moderators. Premium features, typically selectable voices and higher message limits, are often gated by the bot’s subscription, so check the bot’s docs before promising members a specific voice.

Example workflows you can copy

The shortest comparison is /tts hello versus /speak hello.

• /tts hello uses Discord’s built-in feature. The sentence is read aloud to members who have TTS notifications on for that channel and who have not disabled the /tts command in accessibility settings. Nothing is installed, but you cannot pick the voice, and hearing depends on each listener’s settings.
• /speak hello (the name varies by bot) sends the text to the bot, which checks your role and the channel rules, then reads it into the voice channel so everyone connected hears it together.

Typical copy-paste workflows:

1. One-off bot message: /speak The raid starts in ten minutes.
2. Moderator stop: if something loops, a moderator runs /stop (on many bots this is limited to staff roles).
3. Language practice: set the bot’s default language to the target language in the dashboard, then /speak Bonjour, comment allez-vous.
4. Translated speech: a member writes in Spanish, the bot translates to English, then speaks the English version to the voice room. Interaction Bot’s guide to on-demand translation commands shows the /translate <message> <language> pattern that pairs with this.

Most of these commands are just typing a line and pressing Enter. The part that takes setup is not the command, it is the permissions and the channel, which is why server admins do that first and members mostly learn one or two commands.

Where commands differ, and how to find your bot’s exact list

Two servers running different TTS bots will usually accept different command names, so never assume /say works because the docs said /speak. The reliable moves are: run the bot’s /help command, read its official documentation, and check the dashboard for the configured input channel, default voice, language, and volume. On Interaction Bot, /help lists the general commands such as /about, /ping, and /support, while the dashboard covers per-server settings like default language, voice, and message length. When in doubt, ask in the bot’s support server, which Interaction Bot exposes through its own /support command.