Support & security

Need help? Email support@anythingaloud.com. Include the app version, macOS version and what you expected to happen. Do not send reading content, pairing links, tokens or passwords.

Jump to: Setup Installing a voice Option-A does nothing Option-A is taken Updates Uninstalling Reporting a bug Security reports

Setup and quick checks

Anything Aloud requires macOS 13 or later and supports Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
If you have an earlier website download, open the Anything-Aloud disk image, then drag Anything Aloud to Applications before launching it. Running it from the mounted disk image instead is the most common cause of odd behaviour, and it is what leaves people with two speaker icons disagreeing with each other.
The app lives in the menu bar as a speaker icon and has no Dock icon. Closing the reader window does not quit it; use Quit Anything Aloud in the speaker menu for that.
A copy from the Mac App Store installs straight into Applications. Option-A presses Command-C for you once Accessibility allows it. Quit and reopen the app after allowing Accessibility. Alternatively, Services > Read Aloud with Anything Aloud in the right-click menu reads highlighted text with no permission at all.
Grant Accessibility only if you want Anything Aloud to read highlighted text from another app. Copied text and copied screenshots work without it.
Reading needs one Apple Enhanced or Premium voice installed. macOS ships only compact voices by default, so most Macs need one free download; see below.
Speech and screenshot recognition run on your Mac. The only connection the downloaded app makes is the signed update check described below, and it contains nothing you read. The App Store copy makes none.
Check for Updates... checks the signed Anything Aloud feed now. Check for Updates Automatically controls the once-daily background check.
After launch, new customers will get the Mac app through the Mac App Store. Existing website copies use the signed update feed described below.

Installing an Enhanced or Premium voice

Anything Aloud requires an Apple Enhanced or Premium voice. If one is not already installed, the guided setup explains the free download and opens the correct System Settings page.

Open System Settings, then Accessibility, then Read & Speak (called Spoken Content before macOS 26).
Open the System Voice list.
Download any voice marked Enhanced or Premium in the language you read in. They are a few hundred megabytes each, so give the download a few minutes to finish.

There is nothing to restart and nothing to select in Anything Aloud. It notices the new voice on its own and switches to the best one installed, preferring Premium over Enhanced. On macOS 13, which never tells apps that new voices have arrived, open the voice menu in the reader once, or leave the Mac to sleep and wake, and it will be there.

If the reader still reads NO MAC VOICE INSTALLED, the download has not finished, or it finished as a compact voice. Where your language has no Enhanced or Premium voice at all, Anything Aloud uses a compatible Enhanced or Premium voice in another accent rather than staying silent, so a different accent can mean that no compatible voice is installed for your language.

Option-A does nothing

Work down this list in order. The Accessibility step is the usual answer, and the trap underneath it is the usual answer after that.

Is it running? Look for the speaker icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen. If it is missing, open Anything Aloud from your Applications folder.
Does Anything Aloud own the shortcut? The speaker menu shows an Option-A line. Option-A: clipboard reader ready means it is yours. Option-A: Anything Aloud Chrome extension or Option-A: Anything Aloud VS Code extension means that companion is in front and connected, so the press goes to it and to its own word highlighting; the Mac app takes the key back the moment you leave. Option-A unavailable means another app has claimed it; see the next section.
Is Accessibility allowed? Reading a highlighted selection means asking the frontmost app what is selected and, where that app will not say, pressing Command-C on your behalf. macOS gates both behind the Accessibility permission. Choose Allow reading highlighted text... from the speaker menu and switch Anything Aloud on in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility. The App Store copy always presses Command-C. After allowing it, quit Anything Aloud using its speaker menu and reopen it from Applications.
Nothing highlighted? With no live selection, Option-A reads whatever is on the clipboard instead, which can look like the app ignoring you whilst it reads something you copied an hour ago. The reader labels its source at the top of the window, so check what it says it is reading.

The trap worth knowing about. If Anything Aloud already shows a tick in that Accessibility list and Option-A still cannot read your selection, switching it off and on again may not help. macOS pins the permission to the app's signing requirement. A normal Anything Aloud update signed by the same Developer ID should preserve the grant, but a test build, a differently signed copy or a stale macOS permission record can leave the old tick drawn even though it no longer counts. Two ways out, either is fine:

In the website download, choose Reset Accessibility Permission... from the speaker menu, then allow it again when asked.
For either version, open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility. Remove Anything Aloud with the minus button, then add the copy in Applications with the plus button. Quit the app and reopen it. Do this when switching between the website and App Store copies, because they have different signing identities.

Option-A never costs you your clipboard. If the capture comes back empty, whatever you had copied is put back exactly as it was.

Option-A is taken by another app

macOS gives a global shortcut to exactly one app and will not say which app has it. If Anything Aloud could not claim Option-A, it tells you at launch and the speaker menu reads Option-A unavailable. This is a keyboard conflict, not a broken installation, and not something Anything Aloud can settle on your behalf.

Reading still works. Choose Read Selection Now from the speaker menu; it does exactly what Option-A does.
To get the shortcut back, quit the app holding it, then quit and reopen Anything Aloud. The usual holders are text expanders, clipboard managers, window managers, note-takers with a global capture key, and screen recorders. macOS itself does not use Option-A.
Where the other app lets you rebind its shortcut, that is the tidiest fix. Option-A itself is fixed in version 1 and cannot be changed inside Anything Aloud.

The message Anything Aloud shows carries a Carbon error number at the end. It means nothing to you and quite a lot to us, so include it if you write in.

Updating Anything Aloud

The website download checks its signed update feed no more than once every twenty-four hours whilst Check for Updates Automatically is ticked in the speaker menu. Choose Check for Updates... whenever you want to check immediately. If a newer release is available, the app shows what changed and asks before downloading or installing it; it never installs an update silently.

The feed request identifies the Anything Aloud and Sparkle versions so the server can return a compatible release. It does not include your reading content, Mac name or a system profile. Every update archive is verified against the public Ed25519 key built into Anything Aloud and against its Apple code signature before replacement. If the in-app route is unavailable for an existing website copy, contact support.

A copy from the Mac App Store has no update menu; the App Store updates it.

What it costs

At launch, the Mac App Store edition will cost £4.99 once in the UK; Apple shows the price for your region before purchase. It has no in-app purchase, licence key, activation, trial expiry, subscription or Anything Aloud account. Existing website copies continue to work and receive signed updates. If you used a version that asked for a key, update to 1.0.12 and it will stop asking; the old Keychain items are harmless and the uninstall steps below say how to clear them.

If you subscribed through the earlier website checkout, cancel renewal at app.lemonsqueezy.com/my-orders so you are not charged again, and write to support@anythingaloud.com about a refund for any period you have paid for and not used. That subscription is not needed for your existing copy.

Uninstalling completely

Anything Aloud installs no persistent background daemon, no system-wide helper and no kernel extension. The signed updater components live inside the app bundle and leave with it. Everything else it leaves behind is in this list.

Turn Start at Login off in the same menu, then choose Quit Anything Aloud.
Drag Anything Aloud from your Applications folder to the Bin.
Check the login item is gone: System Settings, then General, then Login Items (named Login Items & Extensions on newer macOS). Anything Aloud registers itself there with macOS only if you turned Start at Login on, and it installs no launch agent of its own, so there is nothing to remove from ~/Library/LaunchAgents.
Remove anything an older version stored: open Keychain Access, search for com.anythingaloud.mac-license, and delete what it finds. Those items are a licence key, an activation identifier and validation timestamps left by a version that needed them. The current app writes none and reads none.
Remove the settings: ~/Library/Preferences/com.anythingaloud.mac.plist, which holds your chosen voice, reading speed, setup state and update-check preferences.
Remove ~/Library/Application Support/Anything Aloud if the folder exists. Version 1 does not create it; anything there was left by an earlier test build.
Optionally, in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, remove Anything Aloud with the minus button.

A copy from the Mac App Store keeps its settings in ~/Library/Containers/com.anythingaloud.mac instead of the preferences file above; remove that folder as well.

Reporting a bug

Email support@anythingaloud.com. The one detail that shortens every exchange is the version: open the speaker menu and read the greyed line near the bottom, which begins Version and gives the number and build you are running.

that version line, and your macOS version from the Apple menu, then About This Mac;
whether the Mac is Apple silicon or Intel;
what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead;
which app you were reading from, since a fault that appears in only one app is a different fault;
the Option-A status from the speaker menu, and whether your copy came from the website, TestFlight or the Mac App Store.

Do not send reading content, tokens or passwords. Screenshots help, but crop out anything you would not want read aloud in public.

Companion apps

The website download includes the Mac app plus its Chrome and VS Code companions. The Mac App Store copy has no companions or companion connection. For the website version, start setup from the Anything Aloud speaker menu; the companions connect to the Mac reader and use the same selected Enhanced or Premium voice. Separately labelled optional provider features are described in the privacy policy. Chrome requires one click from you: Developer mode and Load unpacked at chrome://extensions, offered at the end of setup and from Set Up Chrome Companion in the speaker menu; the companion pairs with the app the moment it loads. The VS Code companion installs itself whenever VS Code is on the Mac, and a window that was already open picks it up after Developer: Reload Window. The iPhone app, its share extension and the optional Tailscale connection are not part of this release.

Report a security problem

Email security@anythingaloud.com with the affected version, reproducible steps and impact. Do not access other people's data, disrupt services, or publish an unpatched issue. We will acknowledge valid reports and coordinate a fix and disclosure. The shipped Mac app and its bundled Chrome and VS Code companions are in scope for version 1; the iPhone app and remote-phone connection are not. Ask at the same address if you want the full security policy, including the supported-release and coordinated-disclosure terms.

Privacy

Read the Anything Aloud privacy policy. Privacy and deletion questions go to privacy@anythingaloud.com.

Company details

Anything Aloud Ltd · Company number 17390985 · Registered in England and Wales · Registered office: 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom.