Licence and terms of use
Effective 24 September 2026. The licence below applies to existing copies downloaded from this website. After launch, new Mac App Store purchases will be made through Apple at the price shown in your region and use Apple's Standard License Agreement selected for the App Store listing. Your statutory rights still apply.
The licence
For an existing website download, Anything Aloud Ltd grants you a free, personal, non-exclusive licence to use Anything Aloud for Mac. It covers the Mac app, the bundled Chrome and VS Code companions, and the updates that follow. There is no key to enter, no activation, no limit on how many Macs you use it on, and no expiry. The software and its source remain owned by Anything Aloud Ltd; this licence does not by itself permit resale, redistribution or presenting the work as somebody else's.
Within it you may install the app on any Mac you own or control and read your own material and material you are entitled to read. Nothing of yours is held by us at any point, because your documents are read on your own Mac.
Compatibility and permissions
The product is the Mac app for macOS 13 or later on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The website download includes Chrome and VS Code companions and their local bridge. Its speaker menu stages the Chrome companion for manual confirmation and installs the VS Code companion through VS Code itself. The Mac App Store copy is sandboxed and includes no companions or local bridge. The iPhone app is not included in either version. Support is available at support@anythingaloud.com.
Option-A needs the macOS Accessibility permission to capture a selection; copied text and screenshots remain available if permission is declined. In the Mac App Store copy, Option-A sends Command-C, and you must quit and reopen the app after allowing it. Its Services > Read Aloud with Anything Aloud menu item reads selected text without that permission.
Two things are conditions rather than suggestions, because they describe what the app needs to work at all: 1) macOS 13 or later, on an Apple silicon or an Intel Mac; and 2) an Apple Enhanced or Premium voice, installed once from System Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > System Voice, since a Mac with only a compact voice needs one free download before the app can read. Reading itself needs no internet connection at all.
The website download also offers signed updates. By default it checks https://anythingaloud.com/updates/appcast.xml no more than once every twenty-four hours, and you may turn automatic checks off or start a check yourself from the speaker menu. A check identifies the installed Anything Aloud and Sparkle versions but contains no reading content, Mac name or system profile. When a newer compatible release is found the app asks before downloading or installing it; updates are not installed silently. The Mac App Store copy makes no network requests and is updated through the App Store instead.
Text pulled out of screenshots and images by optical character recognition is approximate by nature, and the app is described on that basis; how well it reads depends on the image you give it.
Acceptable use and security
You may not use the app to access somebody else's device or data without permission, distribute malicious modifications or interfere with the service. Security reports should follow the coordinated-disclosure guidance on the support page.
Liability, complaints and law
Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited; nor does anything here cut down your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Subject to that, Anything Aloud Ltd is responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or of our failing to use reasonable care and skill, and total liability arising out of these terms for the free website copy is limited to £100. The app is supplied for personal use; where it is used for a business purpose we are not liable for lost profit, lost business or business interruption.
Complaints go to support@anythingaloud.com and are answered by email; tell us what you expected, what happened and what would put it right. Anything Aloud Ltd belongs to no alternative dispute resolution scheme and does not undertake to use one, so where a complaint cannot be settled between us you keep every right to take it further, including to the courts named next; free independent advice is available from Citizens Advice. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and the English courts have jurisdiction, save that if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings there, and you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country you live in.
Privacy and contact
The privacy policy explains local reading and update checks. Product questions can be sent to support@anythingaloud.com, privacy and deletion questions to privacy@anythingaloud.com, and security reports to security@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 · support@anythingaloud.com. Anything Aloud Ltd makes and licenses Anything Aloud for Mac.