Text to speech for Apple silicon

An offline TTS reader for Mac.

Turn your reading into listening. Recito reads PDFs, EPUBs and selected text in natural voices on your Mac, with a library that keeps your books, highlights and place together.

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Tue Oct 14 9:41 AM

Walden

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WaldenHenry David Thoreau

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand. Instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

Start listening in three steps.

Bring something to read
Drag a PDF or EPUB into Recito's library. It also imports unprotected Kindle books in MOBI, AZW and AZW3 formats, and DjVu documents. Non-PDF books are converted to PDF on import.
Find a comfortable voice and pace
Recito has 10 voices and supports 31 languages. Voices download on first use. Set the playback speed between 0.5× and 2× and start with a short passage to find a pace that suits the text.
Keep listening your way
Follow the highlighted sentence in the reader, or use the menu bar player, media keys, AirPods and Control Center. A sleep timer can stop playback after a time, page or chapter.

What does a TTS reader do?

TTS stands for text to speech: software turns written words into spoken audio. A TTS reader adds somewhere to open the document, follow the words and return to the same place later. Recito is built for that reading workflow on Apple silicon Macs.

A dedicated reader is useful when you move between papers and books, want to see the sentence being spoken, or need bookmarks, highlights and chapter navigation. Recito keeps those alongside your documents instead of asking you to paste every passage into a separate speech box.

PDFs, EPUBs and scanned books in one library

PDFs open in the reader directly. EPUBs, Kindle files and DjVu documents are converted to PDF when imported, so they use the same paged reading experience. They do not remain reflowable EPUB documents inside Recito.

English and Polish scans get automatic Apple Vision text recognition. Running headers, page numbers and margin notes are skipped, and you can choose how footnotes are read. Books protected by DRM cannot be imported for reading; Recito does not remove that protection.

Offline speech, with a few online tasks

After the initial voice download, speech is generated on your Mac and listening works offline. Your books, notes and voice stay on the device. You do not have to upload a document to get it read aloud.

Offline listening does not mean the app never connects to the internet: license checks, updates and bug reports you choose to send use a connection. Explain, Summarize and finding the contents of scans also need a Mac with Apple Intelligence; these are additional features rather than the definition of TTS.

Read selected text from other Mac apps

You do not need to turn every short passage into a book. Select text in another app and choose Read with Recito from the macOS Services menu. Shortcuts and Siri actions include Read Clipboard, Resume Reading and Export Chapter.

For longer listening, open the document in the library so you can follow the page and keep your place. The free trial gives you 30 minutes of listening per rolling 24 hours. Pro adds unlimited listening and audiobook export through a one-time purchase, with the exact plans below.

Try it free. Pay once.

The trial has every feature except audiobook export, with 30 minutes of listening a day. No subscription.

Free trial

no account needed

Free

30 minutes of listening a day
All 10 voices and 31 languages
Apple Intelligence, Quick read and the menu bar player

Download for Mac

Updates arrive inside the app. Upgrade to Pro any time to remove the limit.

Recito Pro

one-time payment

$119

Unlimited listening with all 10 voices
Audiobook export: MP3, M4B with chapters, M4A, FLAC, WAV
One Mac at a time, move it whenever you like

Buy Recito

Your license key arrives by email. Activate it in Recito under Settings, License.

Recito runs on Macs with Apple silicon.

Questions, answered.

Formats, scans, offline listening, languages and price, in short.

Does this TTS reader work offline?

Yes. Download the voices on first use, then listen without an internet connection. Speech runs on your Mac. License checks, app updates and bug reports you choose to send still use the internet.

Which files can Recito read aloud?

Recito reads PDF, EPUB, Kindle files in MOBI, AZW and AZW3 formats, and DjVu documents. Non-PDF formats are converted to PDF on import. English and Polish scans get automatic text recognition. DRM-protected books cannot be read.

Is there a free TTS reader version?

Recito's free trial needs no account and allows 30 minutes of listening per rolling 24 hours. It includes every feature except audiobook export. Recito Pro costs $119 USD once, with no subscription, and unlocks unlimited listening and audiobook export on one Mac at a time.

Does Recito work on Windows, Intel Macs or phones?

Recito is for Macs with Apple silicon. It is not a Windows, Intel Mac, iPhone or Android reader. Its optional Explain, Summarize and scanned table-of-contents features also need Apple Intelligence.