System-wide hotkey
One shortcut works in every Windows app — browsers, PDFs, email, terminals, docs. No extension to install per site.
Built on Kokoro neural TTS
Read anything aloud,
anywhere on Windows.
Select text in any Windows app, press a hotkey, and a natural neural voice reads it to you. Local, private, and fast.
- Private by default
- Works fully offline
No account to start
ListeningCtrl+Alt+R
Read anything aloud, anywhere on Windows.
1.0×
USAva· US English · on-device
Readwave
The whole loop
Three keystrokes. No copy-paste, no app-switching.
Readwave lives in the background. Reach for it the same way in every program you use.
- step 1 of 3
Select the text
Highlight anything in any app — a browser article, a PDF, an email, even a terminal log.
- ⌘step 2 of 3Ctrl+Alt+R
Press Ctrl+Alt+R
One global hotkey, the same everywhere. Readwave grabs the selection and starts reading.
- step 3 of 3live
It reads aloud
A natural neural voice reads it back. Press the hotkey again to stop — that's the whole loop.
What's inside
A quiet listening layer for your whole machine
Everything is built around one idea: turning the reading you already do into listening, with as little friction as possible.
Local & private
On the free plan the voices run on your device. Your text is never uploaded — nothing to leak, nothing to log.
Natural neural voices
Four built-in voices across US and UK English — calm, even, and easy to listen to for hours.
Listen-later Queue
Send long reads to a queue and play them back-to-back, like a podcast you assembled yourself.
Pronunciations
Teach Readwave the names, acronyms, and jargon specific to your work so they're read correctly every time.
Pro
Smart Reading
Summarize, translate, or simplify a passage first — then have it read aloud. Great for dense or foreign text.
Anything, out loud
If you can select it, Readwave can read it.
Browser article
Board memo
PDF report
Contract email
Error log
Research paper
Browser article
Board memo
PDF report
Contract email
Error log
Research paper
Home
Voices
Activity
Pricing
Start free. Upgrade when you live in it.
The free plan is genuinely useful and fully offline. Pro is for unlimited reading and Smart Reading.
Free
foreverEverything you need to start listening, on your machine.
$0
20,000 words / week
Download for Windows 11- 4 local neural voices (US & UK)
- Fully offline — text never leaves your device
- System-wide hotkey in every app
- Listen-later Queue
- Pronunciations dictionary
- 20,000 words / week
Most popular
Pro
14-day trialFor people who read — and listen — all day.
$5.75/mo
per month, billed $69/yr
Start 14-day free trialNo card required
- Everything in Free
- Unlimited reading
- Smart Reading: summarize, translate, simplify, then read
- Read 40+ languages — translate, then listen in your own
- Studio-grade cloud voices (coming soon)
- Priority updates
Local-first by design
Listening that never phones home.
Plenty of read-aloud tools ship your selection to a cloud you don't control. Readwave does the opposite: the free experience is offline, private, and yours. Pro's cloud-powered Smart Reading sends text only when you choose to summarize, translate, or simplify it.
- Voices run on your device
- The free voices are powered by Kokoro neural TTS, running locally on your PC.
- Works with the Wi-Fi off
- Reading doesn't depend on a server. Use it on a plane, in a SCIF, anywhere.
- Your text stays yours
- On the free plan, the words you read are never sent anywhere or stored.
- No tracking to opt out of
- No ad SDKs, no reading history sold. The product is the product.
Questions
Good to know before you download
Yes. The free plan runs natural neural voices on your device, fully offline, with up to 20,000 words per week — no account or card needed to start. Pro ($8/mo or $69/yr) adds unlimited reading and Smart Reading — summarize, simplify, or translate 40+ languages, then listen — with a 14-day free trial. (Studio cloud voices are coming soon.)
On the free plan, yes — the voices run locally, so the text you select never leaves your computer. There's no upload, no logging, and nothing stored on a server. Pro's Smart Reading sends text to the cloud to summarize, translate, or simplify it — you choose when to use it. (Cloud studio voices are coming later.)
Four built-in voices: Ava and Miles (US English), and Emma and George (UK English). They're tuned to be calm and easy to listen to for long stretches. Pro adds Smart Reading, including translating text from 40+ languages into one you listen to; studio-grade cloud voices are coming soon.
No. The free local voices work with the Wi-Fi off — on a plane, off-grid, or on a locked-down network. You only need a connection for Pro's Smart Reading (and cloud studio voices, coming soon).
Any Windows app where you can select text — your browser, PDF readers, email clients, code editors, terminals, chat apps, and documents. There's nothing to install per app: just highlight and press Ctrl+Alt+R.
Cancel anytime from your account settings — Pro stays active until the end of your billing period, then drops back to the free plan. If you cancel during the 14-day trial you're never charged. Free stays free.