The four chairs in Kyoto where strangers come to read.
Behind a small ramen shop in Kyoto, a retired teacher set out four wooden chairs and a hand-lettered sign reading, simply: sit, read, stay. Three years later, the chairs are full every afternoon, strangers reading side by side, sometimes trading books, almost never speaking. Mornings are busy with locals; afternoons fill with travelers who heard about the spot from a friend, or a friend of a friend.
Three steps. Then it's automatic.
Subscribe to Pro — €9.99/mo
One tap. Cancel anytime. We'll email you a 6-digit code to set a password and unlock the download.
Install & sign in
Drag Aloud to Applications. Open it, sign in with your email and password. Grant Accessibility once.
Double-tap ⇧ Shift
Anywhere. Any app. Selected text plays in your chosen voice. Double-tap again to stop.
Built like a native Mac utility.
One-gesture playback
Double-tap Shift to start, double-tap to stop. No popups, no windows.
Studio-grade voices
Aloud's own neural voice library — tuned for long-form listening, with natural rhythm, breath, and intonation. In a different class from anything Apple ships built-in. Playback starts the instant you press the key.
Unlimited reading
No character cap. No metering. Your subscription just works — read articles, books, PDFs, all month long.
Works in every app
Safari, Notes, Slack, VS Code, PDFs. If you can select it, you can hear it.
Adjustable speed
0.5× to 2.0× — for skim listening or careful reading.
Quiet by design
Menu bar only. No Dock icon. No notifications. Doesn't interrupt your flow.
Questions worth asking.
What does €9.99/mo include?
Unlimited reading. The full library of studio-grade voices. The system-wide hotkey. Every voice and feature update we ship. Cancel anytime.
What makes Aloud different?
Aloud is a focused reading companion. Press the hotkey, and selected text plays back in milliseconds — in any app, with voices tuned for hour-long listening. Adjustable speed. Voice switching. A workflow refined to feel effortless. The kind of utility you set up once and reach for ten times a day.
How is it private?
What you select never leaves your Mac. Aloud is built local-first — hotkey capture, text processing, voice synthesis, and playback all happen on your hardware in real time. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is logged, nothing is stored. We only know your email and subscription status. Never a single word of what you've read.
What do the voices sound like?
Aloud ships its own library of studio-grade neural voices, tuned for long-form listening. Each one was chosen for natural rhythm, breath, and intonation — pick one and forget you're listening to a computer. Apple's built-in voices, by comparison, haven't been seriously updated in years and sound dated within seconds. Aloud's are in a different class.
How does sign-in work?
After subscribing, we email you a 6-digit setup code. Paste it on the thank-you page along with the password you'd like to use. From then on, sign in to the Mac app with your email and that password. The same credentials work on every Mac you own.
Can I cancel any time?
Yes. Manage or cancel from Aloud's Settings → Account, or from any Stripe invoice email. You keep access until the end of your billing period.
Why does Aloud need Accessibility permission?
Accessibility is the standard macOS permission required for utilities that work across every app — without it, Aloud can't read the text you've selected when you press the hotkey. That's the only thing it's used for. No screen recording. No keystroke monitoring. No inspecting other apps' state. Nothing running in the background. You can revoke it any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.