--- title: "Aloud: Text to Speech for Mac That Reads Anything You Select" description: "Aloud is text to speech for Mac. Hold Option as you select text in any app, or add your notes and PDFs, and listen. Nothing is uploaded. No account." url: https://aloud.work/ image: https://aloud.work/img/og.jpg --- # Select anything. Read it Aloud. Text to speech for Mac Highlight any text, file, or folder. Follow along or listen in the background. Nothing is uploaded. No account required. [Download for Mac](https://aloud.work/download). Requires macOS 26 and Apple silicon. Hold option⌥ as you select text in any app, and listen. ## The intent In a society of decreasing literacy, help your attention span: listen along to long texts, multitask podcast-style, and save memorable notes. Aloud gives every piece of text a voice. - **0** files uploaded. Everything is read in place. - **7** days to try all of it. No account, no card. - **3×** at the fastest of eleven speeds, changed mid-sentence. ## How it works: One key to start. A habit by Friday. Papers come out clean, Markdown is read as prose, and anything you can select can be heard. Here is the whole gesture. ### 1. Hold ⌥ Keep Option down in any app. Safari, Mail, Slack, Preview, Obsidian. Anywhere you would normally read. ### 2. Select the text Drag across it, double-click a word, or triple-click a paragraph. When you let go, a small card drops down under the notch wearing the icon of the app it came from. ### 3. Listen The voice starts on its own. The card holds the sentence being read, each word lit as it is said, and the reading carries on after you close the window. [Download for Mac](https://aloud.work/download). Or select first and press ⌥ Space, which can be rebound in Settings. ## The library: Point it at the folders you already have. Aloud reads .md, .txt, and .pdf where they sit and never copies or uploads them. Make a folder from the library and drag documents into it. Each folder shows the first pages of what is inside over the lip of its pocket, so you can tell your papers from your meeting notes from across the room. Reads Obsidian vaults, Markdown, plain text and PDF. ## The reader: Follow along, or don't. The sentence being read is highlighted as the voice moves through it. Click any sentence to jump there. Skip back or forward 10 seconds, always to a sentence boundary, and change speed on the sentence you are on. Every document remembers where you stopped and is marked Finished at the end. Sans or serif, five text sizes, light or dark, and edit in place. ## Everywhere on your Mac: It keeps playing outside the player. Close the window and the voice carries on. The menu bar player shows the sentence being read and changes the voice, the speed and the level without the window. The media keys and AirPods work, the Now Playing card in Control Center shows what is playing, and it pauses when you unplug your headphones. ## Features: Not just a voice. Built for how you actually read. ### Follows along The sentence and the word being read are highlighted. Click any sentence to jump to it. ### Cleans PDFs first Running headers, page numbers, and hyphen breaks are removed before the voice sees them. ### Remembers your place Every document picks up where you stopped and is marked Finished at the end. Bookmark from the reader or its card. ### Kokoro voices Seven neural voices Apple does not ship, four American and three British. One download of about 160 MB, then they run entirely on your Mac. ### Reads Markdown as prose Headings, lists, links, and tables come out the way a person would say them. Code blocks can be skipped. ### Eleven speeds From 0.5× to 3×, a quarter apart. Skip back or forward 10 seconds, always to a sentence boundary. ### Every voice on your Mac Preview any system voice before picking one, with seven recommended voices at the top of the list. ### Nothing leaves your Mac No account, no upload, no telemetry. Your files and the text you select stay on your Mac. ### Search everything Titles and full text across every folder, as you type. Select cards like Finder, and act on the whole selection at once. ## Questions: Before you download. Aloud is text to speech for your Mac. It reads anything you select, and the notes, papers and PDFs in your folders, with voices that run on the Mac itself. ### How do I make my Mac read selected text aloud? Hold Option as you select text in any app, such as Safari, Mail, Slack, Preview or Obsidian, and Aloud starts reading when you let go. Or select first and press ⌥ Space, which can be rebound in Settings. The first time, Aloud asks for the Accessibility permission, which is what lets it read a selection. ### What can Aloud read? Any text you can select in any app, web pages included, where a selected list or table keeps its items and rows. In the library it reads the Markdown, plain text and PDF files in the folders you add, Obsidian vaults included. PDFs lose their running headers, page numbers and hyphen breaks before the voice reaches them, and Markdown's headings, lists, links and tables are read the way a person would say them. ### Which voices does Aloud use? Every voice already on your Mac, each of which you can preview before picking it, with seven recommended voices at the top of the list. Aloud adds seven Kokoro voices too, neural voices Apple does not ship: four American and three British. ### Does Aloud upload my files or the text I select? No. Everything is read on your Mac, with the voices on your Mac. Files are read where they sit and never copied or uploaded, and there is no account, no analytics and no tracking. Aloud goes online for three things only, all to aloud.work: checking for updates once you allow it, downloading the Kokoro voices if you choose one, and renewing a subscriber's key. ### Does Aloud work offline? Yes. Every voice speaks on your Mac, so reading needs no connection. The Kokoro voices are one download of about 160 MB, and run offline from then on. ### How is Aloud different from Spoken Content on the Mac? Spoken Content, in the Mac's Accessibility settings, speaks a selection when you press a shortcut. Aloud starts reading the moment you select with Option held, keeps a library of your folders that remembers where you stopped in every document, cleans PDFs and reads Markdown as prose before speaking, and adds the Kokoro voices. ### Which Macs does Aloud run on? Any Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 26 or later. ### Is Aloud free? Aloud is free to try for 7 days, with everything in it and no account or card. After that, the library, the reader, search, bookmarks, every speed and every voice already on your Mac stay free for good. The Kokoro voices, ⌥ Space and reading as you select with Option held need a paid key, which [the terms](https://aloud.work/terms) describe. ## Work Aloud. Hold Option as you select some text, or add a folder. [Download for Mac](https://aloud.work/download). Reading a selection asks for the Accessibility permission the first time. Requires macOS 26 and Apple silicon. ## Why I made this AI agents and modern work give us unprecedented context, but screen fatigue is real. Listen instead, and dense evals, chat transcripts, and papers become something you take in while you work, walk, or rest your eyes. Competitors charge $130 a year to upload your files to their servers. Aloud runs local voices directly on your hardware. Nothing is uploaded, no account is required, and your data never leaves your desk. Software should get out of your way. Hold ⌥, select text anywhere, and it speaks. No accounts, no onboarding labyrinth, no cloud dependencies. If it reads something wrong, or you want it to read something it cannot yet, [write me](mailto:kevxu@umich.edu?subject=Aloud). I read everything. \- Kevin X. ## More - [Privacy policy](https://aloud.work/privacy) - [Refunds](https://aloud.work/refunds) - [Terms of service](https://aloud.work/terms) - Kevin Xu: [@kevinxuinux](https://x.com/kevinxuinux) on X, [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevux/), [kevxu@umich.edu](mailto:kevxu@umich.edu?subject=Aloud) © 2026 Kevin Xu