Read about and download SpeakOneDrive

What is this thing anyway?

Speak1Drive is a lightweight application that runs on the system tray and looks for a OneDrive icon in said tray. If found, it watches the tray tip text for that icon and can automatically read it out loud or play sounds when there is a change to said tray tip text. As a result, Speak1Drive is able to announce out loud or produce alert noises when the OneDrive app is up to something like downloading a file, uploading a file, etc. Additionally, it allows for manual checking of said tray tip from anywhere with a configurable keystroke (especially useful when using sounds only and wanting to find out what OneDrive is up to when you hear one of the sounds), and a double press provides an easy way to open the OneDrive menu from anywhere without the need of using "system tray listing" functionality in your screen reader or simulating a click on the OneDrive tray icon. Speak1Drive will probably be most useful for people who are blind or visually impaired and using a Screen Reader like NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access), as it uses the Screen Reader to provide the speech output. however, it will speak via the Microsoft Speech API 5 or later using the computer's built in voice if there is no Screen Reader that it supports present. In other words, if you're not blind, or visually impaired, or if you have a screen reader that Speak1Drive does not support, you may still have use for this application.

Requirements

Same as OneDrive for windows itself
OneDrive, of course click here to visit their web site Note OneDrive is included with Windows 10, anyone with even a free Microsoft account can use it.
if using with screen reader, Speak1Drive supports the following
1. JAWS, not sure how far back, 10 at least
2. Window-Eyes, no clue how far back, I'm guessing earlier than 7.0
3. System Access, to my knowledge it's not really possible to be running an old system access so how far back is not applicable
4. Dolphin Supernova and Hal, no clue what version, most likely it'll work though is my guess
5. Cobra (apparently, I have not tested)

The reason I'm not totally sure about how far back these go is I didn't write the code I use to access the screen readers and the documentation for that doesn't tell me. If you're using something ancient and you wonder, try it and see if it works.

Installation

Run the installer. It will want administrator privileges, so if you have user account control turned on, the UAC prompt will come up. Follow the installation wizard to choose where to install it and where to put the start menu shortcuts and whether you want Speak1Drive to start automatically each time your computer is started. the installer will give you a chance to check all the settings made. If all is well, hit install. Installation should take about 10 seconds. On the last page there is the opportunity to choose whether to start Speak1Drive immediately, view documentation and view the change log to see what's new.

Updating to newer versions of Speak1Drive

Speak1Drive by default checks every six hours for a newer version of itself online and, if found, downloads and installs it. You will be interrupted briefly when the installer appears, but no action should be needed on your part, unless the installer failed for some reason. I've had it throw errors in the past because Speak1Drive didn't manage to close quick enough and files were still open and the installer was thus unable to modify them. If you need to disable automatic updating, which may be the case if you're using an old version of OneDrive that is somehow unsupported by later versions of Speak1Drive, you can disable auto updating by unchecking the "Auto Check for Version Updates" check box. If you do have auto updating disabled, you can still perform manual update checks. If you do this and there is an update, the new version will be downloaded and installed immediately. To manually check for updates, hit the version number found in the help menu of the configuration window or at the bottom of the Speak1Drive tray menu.

how it works

Speak1Drive will hang out in your system tray and look for a OneDrive icon. if it can find one, it will watch for that icon to change it's tray tip. When Speak1Drive detects a change to the OneDrive icon, it will automatically read out what the tray tip now says, after stripping some of the information away so as not to be rattling on about transfer rates and the like as that every time the speed changes which, for most people, is pretty much continuously. It can also play a non obtrusive sound to alert you when something is happening, either in addition to or alternatively to the spoken output. These can both be disabled, enabling for use of Speak1Drive to have quick read outs of the OneDrive icon only when desired, by pressing the keyboard shortcut, and having the ability to open the OneDrive menu and OneDrive folder but not having to put up with continuous OneDrive status updates. If it can't find a OneDrive tray icon, it will announce "No OneDrive Icon found". It should be able to pick up the icon automatically if you start OneDrive after already having Speak1Drive running. Also it should be able to pick it up again if you have to exit and restart OneDrive and you leave Speak1Drive running. You can click or press space or enter on the Speak1Drive icon in the tray to bring up a menu of options that will allow you to make Speak1Drive:

launch the configuration window where you can adjust settings, like whether to Automatically speak or play sounds for OneDrive status changes
test the speech output
view this documentation
view the current Speak1Drive version and perform a manual check for updates
exit Speak1Drive

Note that you can use the keyboard shortcut (shift+alt+win+o) to bring up the Speak1Drive configuration window where ever you happen to be.
Additionally, a configurable keyboard command is provided to allow to make Speak1Drive announce what the OneDrive Icon says in the tray tip at any time, anywhere. Said key command also provides the ability to open the OneDrive window with multiple quick presses. The desired key combination for this can be modified via a combo box in the configuration window. It is shift+ctrl+back slash by default.

Download

If you have trouble with the download because antimalware features are blocking it, SpeakOneDrive is not malware, its written in Autoit, which, being the scripting language that it is, has this problem where any application that is actually malware and gets added into the detection by an anti malware app will cause my app, if written in the same version of autoit usually, to also become detected as that same piece of malware.
Some old versions may be provided in case there is a need to support some older version of OneDrive or for what ever reason.

Version 5, released on 10/1/2021
Fixing broken checkbox for toggling say "One Drive" before status change messages. You can try manually toggling this if you are updating to ensure your configuration file gets the change.
Version 4, released on 10/1/2021
Adding Windows 11 support, fixing some pronunsiations.
Version 3, released on 2/13/2020
First public release, woohoo!