MacOS – How to download/save a backup of OSX’s “Enhanced Quality” system voices for future use

macostext to speech

I wipe and reinstall OS X about once ever few months—probably more than necessary if I'm honest with myself, but then, it has become my go-to way to fix problems, and I've become very fast at getting everything set up again.

There is however one thing I have to do after every reinstall that takes quite some time on my slow internet connection: re-downloading the "enhanced quality" version of the "Samantha" system voice (my personal favorite).

Is there any way I could back up this enhanced voice so that I won't have to re-download it every time I install OS X? Ideally, I'd like a simple .pkg file I can just double click to install. Such a .pkg file for "Enhanced Speech Recognition" can be downloaded here, but I can't find anything similar for system voices.

Best Answer

Search for CatalogVersion 2 ApplePostURL http://swpost.apple.com in a browser. Or download one or several of the Apple update catalog files directly e.g:

Open the file(s) with a decent text editor. Search the file for MLV_locale_name with locale: your preferred locale and name: the voice name.

E.g. searching for MLV_it_IT_alice will reveal:

        ...
        <key>031-11791</key>
        <dict>
            <key>ServerMetadataURL</key>
            <string>http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/44/20/031-11791/gm3k0mrgb2nhbw6nmomxgshi9cd36lv9ke/MLV_it_IT_alice.smd</string>
            <key>Packages</key>
            <array>
                <dict>
                    <key>Size</key>
                    <integer>264300527</integer>
                    <key>MetadataURL</key>
                    <string>https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/44/20/031-11791/gm3k0mrgb2nhbw6nmomxgshi9cd36lv9ke/MLV_it_IT_alice.pkm</string>
                    <key>URL</key>
                    <string>http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/44/20/031-11791/gm3k0mrgb2nhbw6nmomxgshi9cd36lv9ke/MLV_it_IT_alice.pkg</string>
                </dict>
            </array>
            <key>PostDate</key>
            <date>2015-01-22T18:33:08Z</date>
            <key>Distributions</key>
            <dict>
                <key>English</key>
                <string>https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/44/20/031-11791/gm3k0mrgb2nhbw6nmomxgshi9cd36lv9ke/MLV_it_IT_alice.dst/031-11791.English.dist</string>
            </dict>
        </dict>
        ...

containing the ServerMetadataURL and the direct pkg download URL: MLV_it_IT_alice.pkg

Enter the pkg download URLs in a browser or a download manager to get all desired voices.

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