Qwen3-TTS for Mac - Run AI Text-to-Speech Locally on Apple Silicon

Run Qwen3-TTS text-to-speech AI locally on your MacBook with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4). No cloud, no API keys, completely offline.

Keywords: Qwen TTS Mac, Qwen3 TTS Apple Silicon, MLX text to speech, local TTS Mac, voice cloning Mac, AI voice generator MacBook

Features

• Voice Cloning - Clone any voice from a 5-second audio sample
• Voice Design - Create new voices by describing them ("deep narrator", "excited child")
• Custom Voices - 9 built-in voices with emotion and speed control
• 100% Local - Runs entirely on your Mac, no internet required
• Optimized for M-Series - Uses Apple's MLX framework for fast GPU inference

Why MLX Models?

MLX models are specifically optimized for Apple Silicon. Compared to running standard PyTorch models:

Tested on M4 MacBook Air (fanless) with 1.7B models

MLX runs natively on the Apple Neural Engine and GPU, meaning better performance with less heat and battery drain.

Quick Start (5 Minutes)

1. Clone and setup

git clone https://github.com/kapi2800/qwen3-tts-apple-silicon.git
cd qwen3-tts-apple-silicon
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
brew install ffmpeg

2. Download models

Pick the models you need from the table below. Click the link, then click "Download" on HuggingFace.

Pro Models (1.7B) - Best Quality

Lite Models (0.6B) - Faster, Less RAM

Put downloaded folders in models/:

models/
├── Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-CustomVoice-8bit/
├── Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-VoiceDesign-8bit/
└── Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-Base-8bit/

3. Run

source .venv/bin/activate
python main.py

Usage

========================================
 Qwen3-TTS Manager
========================================

  Pro Models (1.7B - Best Quality)
  ---------------------------------
  1. Custom Voice
  2. Voice Design
  3. Voice Cloning

  Lite Models (0.6B - Faster)
  ---------------------------
  4. Custom Voice
  5. Voice Design
  6. Voice Cloning

  q. Exit

Select: 

• Custom Voice: Pick from preset speakers, set emotion and speed
• Voice Design: Describe a voice (e.g., "calm British narrator")
• Voice Cloning: Provide a reference audio clip to clone

Tips

• Drag .txt files directly into the terminal for long text
• Voice cloning works best with clean 5-10 second audio clips
• Speed options: Normal (1.0x), Fast (1.3x), Slow (0.8x)
• Type q or exit anytime to go back

Requirements

• macOS with Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4)
• Python 3.10+
• RAM: ~3GB for Lite models, ~6GB for Pro models

Troubleshooting

Star History

Related Projects

• Qwen3-TTS - Original Qwen3-TTS by Alibaba
• MLX Audio - MLX framework for audio models
• MLX Community - Pre-converted MLX models

If this project helped you, please give it a ⭐ star!