Aloud

Reads to you.Listens to you.

Aloud is a small Mac menu bar app. Select any text and it reads it to you in a natural voice. Double-tap a key and talk, and it types what you say into any app. Both run on your Mac, so nothing you read or say goes online.

Download for Mac

Free · Apple silicon · macOS 14 or later

Aloud“For most of history, reading was something you did with your eyes.”

Two taps. That's it.

Both Option keys do the work. Double-tap the left one to hear what you've selected, the right one to start talking. They work in every app.

Read the selected text

Select text in any app, then double-tap left ⌥

Reads to you

Hear anything you can select.

Articles, email threads, PDFs, long Slack messages. The first words arrive in about half a second, and it keeps reading in the background while you do something else.

Aloud's player: the text being read with the current sentence highlighted, a timeline, and playback controls
  • 14 voicesAmerican and British, far closer to a person than the built-in Mac voices
  • Up to 2.5× speedFaster listening without the chipmunk effect
  • Scrub like a podcastDrag the timeline, skip 15 seconds, or click any sentence to jump to it
  • AirPodsPress once to pause, twice to skip ahead a sentence

Listens to you

Talk instead of typing.

Click into any text field and double-tap the right Option key. Talk for ten seconds or ten minutes. Tap it once more and your words appear, punctuated, about a second later.

To: Sam Okafor
Hi Sam, I'm running about ten minutes late. Could you grab us a table by the window? Thanks!
The dictation pill: a red recording dot, a live sound level and a timer
  • Double-tap, then tapDouble-tap to start, one tap to finish. Or hold the key and let go when you're done
  • About 1 secondIt transcribes while you talk, so even long dictation is ready right after you stop
  • Hard to loseOnly ⌃⌥esc cancels, so a stray Esc can't throw away ten minutes of talking
  • Any appMail, Slack, Notes, Messages, your browser, your code editor

Nothing you read or say leaves your Mac.

Both models are stored on your Mac and run on its own chip. There's no account and no subscription, and it keeps working with Wi-Fi off.

The voice

Kokoro 82M

Model size
82 million parameters
First words
about 0.5 seconds
Speed
2–4× real time on an M1 Max
Voices
14, American and British
Download
330 MB, once

The ears

NVIDIA Parakeet 0.6B

Model size
600 million parameters
Text ready
about 1 second after you stop
Speed
20–30× real time
Download
460 MB, once
  • Free, with no usage limit
  • No account
  • Works offline
  • Open source

Works anywhere you can select or type text

Set up in a minute.

The app is a small download. The voice and dictation models follow quietly in the background the first time it opens.

  1. Download and open the disk imageDownload it here, then drag Aloud into your Applications folder.
  2. Open Aloud from ApplicationsmacOS asks once whether to open an app from the internet; click Open. The bars appear in your menu bar, with a short welcome underneath. The voice (about 330 MB) downloads in the background, usually within a minute or two, then reading is ready.
  3. Allow Accessibility accessClick Open Accessibility Settings and switch Aloud on. This lets it see the text you select and type what you dictate. It doesn't record your screen or keystrokes.
  4. Allow the microphone the first time you dictateThe 460 MB dictation model starts downloading shortly after first launch, so it's usually ready by then.

Questions.

The short answers.

Is it really free?

Yes. The voice and transcription models run on your own Mac, so there's no server to pay for and no usage limit. Aloud is open source.

Is anything I select or say sent to the internet?

No. Text is turned into speech, and speech into text, on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded, and both work with Wi-Fi switched off once the voice and dictation models have downloaded.

Which Macs does it run on?

Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or newer) running macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Intel Macs aren't supported because the voice would be too slow.

Can I keep using another dictation app?

Yes, but give them different keys. Aloud listens for a double-tap of the right ⌥ (Option) key by default. If your other app uses Option too, switch Aloud to Shift, Command or Control under right-click → Double-Tap.

Why does it need Accessibility and microphone access?

macOS only lets apps read another app's selected text, notice the dictation key, and type into other apps through Accessibility. The microphone is used only while you're dictating.

Can I change the shortcuts?

Yes. Right-click the menu bar icon. Under Double-Tap, pick Option, Shift, Command or Control (the left key reads, the right key dictates), or turn double-taps off. ⌃⌥R also starts reading, and with double-taps off, dictation can use right ⌥, right ⌘, fn or ⌃⌥D.

How do I uninstall it?

Right-click the menu bar icon, choose Quit, then drag Aloud from Applications to the Trash. To remove the downloaded voice and dictation models too, delete the ReadAloud folder in ~/Library/Application Support.

How do I get updates?

Aloud checks once a day and offers new versions; you can also choose Check for Updates… from the menu bar icon. If you have version 1.3 or earlier, download the latest once from this page.

Give your eyes
and hands a break.

Download for Mac

Free · Apple silicon · macOS 14 or later · 11 MB