Why does VoiceOver keep speaking after it names an item?

VoiceOver has a helpful feature that often speaks additional information, called hints, after speaking the name of an item. The hint suggests actions you can take and can be extremely useful when you are learning VoiceOver. 

Examples of hints include:

When you tap an app, you hear its name followed by the hint "double tap to open".

When you tap in item in the status bar at the top of the screen you hear its name, followed by "status bar item" and then the long hint "swipe down with three fingers to reveal notifications; swipe up with three fingers to reveal the control centre; double tap to scroll to top".

Listening to these hints can initially be very helpful but they can also slow you down. You have several choices:

1. You don't need to listen to a hint in full; just go ahead with your next gesture while the hint is speaking

2. If you prefer silence before you perform your next gesture, VoiceOver speech can always be paused with a two finger tap. Do be sure to tap just once with two fingers.

3. If you no longer need all hints, they can be controlled at Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Verbosity / Hints. The choices here are Always, Never and App Specific Hints. If you are familiar with the basic VoiceOver hints, I recommend choosing app specific hints. Many apps have hints alerting you to app features that you might otherwise miss. You will also find here a setting to adjust the delay time before hints are spoken. Only select Never if you feel confident about the VoiceOver behaviour of all your apps and if you later install a new app you might want to turn App Specific Hints back on 

4. You may wish to change your hints verbosity setting wihout delving into settings. If you add hints to the rotor, turning the rotor to hints will allow you to choose between Always, Never and App Specific Hints with a one finger swipe up. Alternatively Hints may be added to your Quick Settings at Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Quick Settings which will allow you to turn hints on and off with a two finger quadruple tap and then selecting hints from the menu that appears. This will probably be useful only if you don't include too many items in your quick settings menu.

So, don't let hints slow you down.  Remember also that they are only hints and not instructions. Having said that, it pays to listen to them in full occasionally; I had forgotten that touching a status bar item and then double tapping with one finger scrolls any page to the top. This can be much easier than repeated three finger vertical swipes or using the vertical scroll bar... and I had to be reminded of it by a hint!

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last updated 21 September 2026