Aloud

Aloud is a native Mac app that reads selected text, PDFs, and screenshots out loud with word-by-word highlighting.

Aloud is a native Mac application designed to read any text, PDF, or screenshot out loud directly on your device. Users can select text in any app, open PDFs with clutter removed, or capture screenshots to hear them read aloud with a soft, rounded word highlight. The app operates from a quiet menu bar with a floating reader that leaves background selections intact. It supports built-in Mac voices, optional offline Kokoro neural voices on Apple silicon, and external API keys for ElevenLabs or Cartesia. The software runs locally to preserve privacy, requiring internet access only for license activation, updates, and optional voice downloads.

Aloud at a glance

Best for: Writer, Researcher
Runs on: macOS
Pricing: $19 once per Mac, no subscription
Released: November 2026
Category: AI audio tool
Website: aloudapp.app

Key features

Reads selected text, PDFs, and screenshots
Word-by-word text highlighting
Floating menu bar reader
On-device and offline voice support
Customizable pronunciation dictionary
Audio export to M4A files
Web article reading from Safari and Chrome

Use it for

Listening to long PDF documents without headers and footers
Reading text captured from screenshots or images
Listening to web articles without browser clutter
Exporting text readings as audio files

Alternatives to Aloud

Epilude Narrator — Read text aloud with on-device or cloud voices and dictate anywhere on your Mac.
NaturalReader — It offers content-aware AI voices in over 90 languages with cross-device compatibility.
SpeechFast — Dictate anywhere on Mac with 100 percent local processing and no cloud servers.
Blurt — Fast, native open-source dictation with server-side LLM cleanup and no subscription.
Speechify — Converts any text to speech and creates podcasts from documents instantly.
LocalBolo — Private, on-device dictation that works in any app without cloud data usage.
SaidTrace — Transcribes audio locally and keeps your archive on your Mac.
Superwhisper — Transcribes speech offline and online with custom AI modes and templates.
Scriber Pro 2.0 — Transcribes 4.5 hours of audio in 3.5 minutes completely offline.
Storytella — Generates speech entirely on the device without data collection or accounts.
Book2Speech — It converts DRM-free books into audiobooks with hundreds of natural AI voices and read-along highlighting.
Hex Transcription — On-device dictation for the Mac, with no cloud service needed

All Aloud alternatives