Mac apps built on OpenAI's older voices face a January 6 cutoff
OpenAI will remove tts-1, tts-1-hd, and two gpt-4o-mini-tts models from its API on January 6, 2027.
AI · Macfolio · 9 October 2026
OpenAI's API deprecations page lists four text-to-speech models for removal on January 6, 2027: tts-1, tts-1-hd, and two dated versions of gpt-4o-mini-tts. The notice is dated October 1, 2026, cites "at least three months' notice," and points developers to gpt-realtime-2.1-mini through the Realtime API.
The dates that matter
- January 6, 2027: tts-1, tts-1-hd, gpt-4o-mini-tts-2025-03-20, and gpt-4o-mini-tts-2025-12-15 are removed, with gpt-realtime-2.1-mini as the replacement
- January 20, 2027: legacy audio and realtime models, including gpt-realtime-mini and gpt-4o-mini-realtime, are removed (announced July 20)
- February 26, 2027: whisper-1 and the gpt-4o transcription models are removed, with gpt-live-transcribe or gpt-transcribe suggested instead (announced August 26)
OpenAI's policy promises at least six months' notice for generally available models and at least three months for specialized variants.
Jason Snell wrote at Six Colors on October 8 that his site's audio newsletter uses one of the affected voices and that the read-later app Listen Later is built on them. He said he picked OpenAI's older voice because newer models sometimes omitted or rewrote text, and that he is moving to ElevenLabs.
This does not mean your Mac's built-in voices, Spoken Content, or dictation are affected. These are OpenAI API models that third-party apps call over the network.
Who should check their apps
If a read-aloud, podcast, or transcription tool is part of your work, check whether it relies on OpenAI, then ask the developer what changes in January and February. Teams that built internal tools on tts-1 or whisper-1 have the same deadlines and should budget time for testing.
Our take: the practical risk is less about apps breaking overnight and more about voices changing. A replacement can sound different, and a voice you have listened to for hundreds of hours may not carry over. Snell's caution about newer models skipping or rewording text is worth testing for before you switch.
Developers choose how to migrate, so some apps may switch providers or change pricing. Apps that run Whisper models locally on your Mac do not depend on the API models listed here. OpenAI says some customers may be able to arrange dedicated capacity for continued access after a shutdown date through its sales team.