In this podcast, Thomas Domville demos the new Copied Speech rotor option in iOS 26 for VoiceOver. Think of it as a lightweight clipboard history: it remembers what you copied with VoiceOver and lets you paste from the last ten copied items directly via the rotor, making multi-item copy/paste (like app titles and release notes) fast and accessible.
What’s covered / why it matters
- What Copied Speech is: a new rotor item in iOS 26 that surfaces your recent VoiceOver copies (described as a “clipboard history”).
- How much it stores: the last 10 clipboard items.
- The workflow boost: copy multiple elements (e.g., an App Store title and its version notes) and paste them into a text field without bouncing back and forth.
- Gesture requirement (important): items only appear in Copied Speech if you copy using VoiceOver’s three-finger quadruple-tap; standard Edit > Copy or Select All → Copy won’t show up.
- Real-world demo context: App Store → Mail compose; selecting “Copied speech” in the rotor, navigating items, and inserting them.
Step-by-step: Using Copied Speech with VoiceOver
- Copy with VoiceOver: On any selectable text, perform a three-finger quadruple tap. You’ll hear confirmation that it was copied. (This is required for Copied Speech.)
- Open a text field: For example, compose an email in Mail (or use Messages/Notes). Place the insertion point where you want to paste.
- Turn the rotor to “Copied speech”: Rotate counterclockwise through rotor items until you hear “Copied speech.”
- Choose the item: Swipe up/down to move through your recent copied entries (up to ten).
- Paste it: One-finger double-tap to insert the selected item at the cursor.
- Repeat as needed: Switch items and insert again to build your note or message from multiple copies.
Tips & caveats
- Only VoiceOver copies appear: Copies made via text selection + Edit > Copy won’t show up in Copied Speech (even though they’re on the system clipboard). Use the three-finger quadruple-tap to capture items for the rotor.
- Great for research/notes: Thomas’s example pulls an app title and its version notes from the App Store into Mail in seconds.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Thomas: Hello and welcome. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. There is a new feature in iOS 26 that I'm just very excited that they introduced for us to use. There is a new rotor option called Copy Speech. Essentially, in a nutshell, I kind of refer to that as a clipboard history. Yeah, so in the past, in the older version of iOS, one annoying thing that I found that is just completely frustrating is that I am only able to paste things in the clipboard one at a time, so... I do quite a few things with Apple Business Every Day. So App Store is one of those areas I go to and I try to find new apps or things are being updated or whatever might not. And I want to be able to copy multiple things and then send a note to myself about it. But the problem is I have to copy it once and then I have to go back to my note, paste it, and then come back to the App Store, copy again, go back to the note, paste that, and And ditto, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you probably have been there. Frustrating, right? Well, this new copy speech feature is we'll remember the last 10 items you place in the clipboard and not only be able to add things to the clipboard, but you can also access it, which makes things so much simpler for me and hopefully for you and something that you will be excited to try out for yourself. So I'm going to do an example here. I'm in the App Store, and there is a new tapestry update that I want to kind of tell myself about the new tapestry and what version that is on. So I'm going to go right here. Now, I've already had the particular tapestry app up. So what I'm looking for is the title. So that's the first thing I want to copy. I'm going to swipe right until I get to the actual title.
VoiceOver: Share button. Artwork. Tapestry by IconFactora. Image. A black icon with green and purple lines. Tapestry by IconFactora. Heading.
Thomas: That's a one-on-one, so I'm going to do a copy. gesture and if you're unaware of what the copy gesture is do a three finger quadruple tap i know that is a finger full so i'm going to do that now tapestry by icon factor copied to clipboard and i know it was successfully done because this is copied to the clipboard so that you know has been done i'm going to go to the right until i find the actual version for this version 1.2.2 two mo ago
VoiceOver: Fixed a critical bug that could cause tapestries refreshed to never finish, as well as some quirks with the in-app browser. Improvements bullet worked around a bug that could cause tapestry to never... I'm going to pause that, and that's exactly what I'm going to copy.
Thomas: Do the gesture once again. Three-finger quadruple tap.
VoiceOver: Version 1.2.2, two mo' ago. Fixed a critical bug that could cause tapestries refreshed to never finish, as well as some quirks with the in-app...
Thomas: I'm going to stop there so you don't have to listen to the whole note that was fixed, but I'll say copy if you want to listen to the whole thing. So now I copied both of those items into the clipboard. Now what we're going to do, we need to go to an app or place that has a text field. So that could be mail, messages, or notes or whatever have not. So I'm going to find a text field here.
VoiceOver: Doc, mail, no unread emails. toolbar, compose, button, two, text field, message content, message body, insertion point at start.
Thomas: So here I am in a composed mail. So typically I like to mail things to myself. All right. So now we're ready to activate the rotor. So we're going to do a counterclockwise dial.
VoiceOver: Misspelled words. Swipe left or right to choose a replacement. Then double tap to insert.
Thomas: You hear the typical things you had in the past. So we had misspell.
VoiceOver: Edit.
Thomas: And edit. Now let's do it counterclockwise one more time.
VoiceOver: Copied speech. Version 1.2.2. Two mo' ago. Fixed a critical bug that could cause tapestries. Refreshed.
Thomas: And the first item here is copy speech. And the last item I copied to the clipboard. Now it retains the last ten items. So if I swipe down here.
VoiceOver: Tapestry by Icon Factory.
Thomas: That was the previous item I'd copied. Now, if you want to copy that or paste that to your text field, find the item that you want to paste. And this is the first one I want to paste. So one finger double tap.
VoiceOver: Tapestry by icon factor.
Thomas: And there you go. So it now added the tapestry. And if I do the counterclockwise, let's go back to the version itself. The one I copied to the clipboard, I want to get that and paste it there. So counterclockwise until you find copy speech.
VoiceOver: I'm going to swipe up. Now I'm going to do one finger double tap. And now let's take a look at my text field here. Message content. Message body. Text field is editing.
Thomas: Tapestry by IconFactora version 1.2.2. Two mo' ago. fixed a critical bug that could... And voila, that makes my life so much easier than having to go back and forth, back and forth. So I think this copy speech feature is the bomb. I think this is the best feature in iOS 26 for myself. I absolutely love this feature and I use it heavily. And I thought maybe you should know about it and how to use it. Now there is one caveat in a Catch-22 I will mention about this feature. using this feature. This will only work if you copy to the clipboard by the voiceover gesture. That means the three fingers quadruple tap is the only item that's going to work. Meaning that sometimes what I've done in the past, I went to the text selection text, and then I select my text, or I go to edit and do select all, and then I go to edit and hit copy. If you do that approach, that will not work. Even though it does copy to the clipboard, for some reason, it doesn't see in the copy speech. So as of this podcast and this version of iOS 26, that doesn't... Feature does not work by that method. You can only use it by the three-finger, quadruple-tap copy. So that is going to do. Call the copy speech. My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse. Until next time, bye-bye.