If you’ve accidentally enabled the Narrator feature in Microsoft Windows 10 and hear a narrator voice when you type, start your computer, or mouse over an item. You can turn it off with a simple setting. Here’s how it’s done.
Quick Method 1
- Hold the Windows Key and press “Enter“.
Quick Method 2
- Hold the “Caps Lock” key and press “Esc“
Long Method
- Select “Start” > “Settings” (gear icon).
- Open “Ease of Access“.
- Select “Narrator“.
- Toggle “Narrator” to “Off“. Also toggle “Start Narrator automatically” to “Off” if you don’t want the voice at startup.
Ken Odeluga says
May 13, 2019 at 10:50 amYou’ve just saved my bacon. Thank you!
Tracey S says
March 29, 2019 at 7:34 amI’ve tried all of these methods of turning off Narrator and none of them have worked for me. This started happening yesterday when I added code to Excel. I finally rebooted and the Narrator finally stopped. However, today, when I opened Excel, the Narrator automatically started AGAIN. Everything for Narrator (in Windows) and Speak (in Excel) is turned off. What the heck????? Sooooooooooo annoying.
~ says
February 26, 2019 at 1:45 pmMethod 2 worked for me. Thanks!
Ann Auzine says
January 21, 2019 at 10:43 amI researched everywhere and finally found your site to turn off my Narrator. Tip 2 did the trick! Thank You!
Chris Maros says
January 18, 2019 at 3:03 pmThis ‘Disabling’ Narrator is not working.
I have a 2 in 1 laptop, the narrator is disabled!!!
whenever I switch from laptop to tablet, the narrator comes on, I don’t hear any voice, but the two shifts are locked and the keyboard is unusable, and I haven’t found a way to deactivate it while in tablet..
Why are we forced with that stupid stuff anyway… This should be part of windows features that we can uninstall. but no, apparently it’s another “you will have this thing, cause we want you to” MS minded thing.
JJ says
December 10, 2018 at 3:33 pmI tried and tried all the above suggestions, which I have successfully used in the past but none worked. How frustrating to find that simply hitting Escape alone-no additional button-was what finally worked.
Jim says
November 26, 2018 at 7:55 amThank for this page. The long method worked and showed me the shortcut on my Windows 10 Pro x64, version 1803 (Build 10.0.17134) computer is Win+Ctrl+Enter. Quick Method 1 leaves out the Ctrl button. I assume Microsoft made another change.
Mitch Bartlett says
November 9, 2018 at 1:40 pmIn Media Player while the video is playing, go to “Main Menu” > “Special Features” and set “Commentary” to “Off”.
Shawn Netolicky says
November 9, 2018 at 12:55 pmMy Narrator is set to off yetI still hear commentary when I am playing a movie in Media Player 14. Not sure what steps to take at this point. Any ideas??
pebble says
October 23, 2018 at 9:01 amThank you for this tip. I accidentally activated the Narrator with a random hotkey press and this was the first page I found that correctly showed how to turn it off.