Open Source

Any app on your Mac,
read aloud.

A macOS menu bar app that reads text aloud from any application. Focus a window, press ⌘⇧L, and listen.

Download for macOS View Source

Features

Your text, read aloud

Murmur lives in your menu bar and turns any on-screen text into speech — instantly.

⌨️

Global Hotkey

Press ⌘⇧L from anywhere to start reading. Fully customizable in settings.

🔍

Smart Extraction

Reads the focused text in any app via the Accessibility API — with clipboard as a fallback.

🌐

Browser Aware

Extracts article content directly from Safari and Chrome, skipping ads and navigation.

🎤

Two Voice Engines

System voices for instant, free playback — or OpenAI TTS for studio-quality speech.

☰

Menu Bar Native

No dock icon, no windows — just a discreet menu bar panel. Stays out of your way.

🔒

Privacy First

System voice means zero network calls. OpenAI is opt-in — your text stays on your machine by default.

How It Works

Two ways to listen

Murmur intelligently reads from the focused app — or falls back to your clipboard. Either way, it's one action.

1 Read the Focused App

Press ⌘⇧L from any app
Murmur detects the focused window and extracts its text
In Safari and Chrome, it pulls the article — not the chrome
Text is read aloud — press again to stop

2 Read Your Clipboard

Copy any text to your clipboard
Click Read Clipboard in the menu bar
Murmur reads the copied text aloud
Pause, resume, or stop anytime

Voice Engines

Two engines, your choice

Use the built-in system voice for free, offline speech — or bring your own OpenAI API key for studio-quality TTS.

System Free

Apple's built-in AVSpeechSynthesizer

Works instantly with no setup
Completely offline — no data leaves your Mac
Choose from all installed macOS voices
Adjustable speed from 0.5x to 2x

OpenAI TTS BYOK

High-quality cloud voices via the OpenAI API

Natural, studio-quality speech
Multiple voice options (Alloy, Nova, Shimmer, and more)
Bring your own API key — stored in your Mac's Keychain
Pay only for what you use via your OpenAI account

Bring Your Own Key. Murmur never collects or proxies API keys. Your key goes directly from your Keychain to OpenAI.

Install

Get started in seconds

Download the app or build from source. No external runtime dependencies.

Download DMG

Download, open, and drag to Applications.

Download Murmur v0.1.0

Build from Source

Clone the repo and build with Xcode. Requires Xcode 26+ and xcodegen.

            git clone https://github.com/arvindang/murmur.git

            cd murmur

            brew install xcodegen

            xcodegen generate

            xcodebuild -project Murmur.xcodeproj -scheme Murmur

Requirements

System requirements

Murmur is a lightweight native app with minimal requirements.

Operating System

macOS 15 Sequoia or later

Apple Silicon

Disk Space

Less than 10 MB

No runtime dependencies

Permissions

Accessibility (recommended)

Required for smart text extraction

Build Requirements

Xcode 26+ & xcodegen

Only needed if building from source

Any app on your Mac,read aloud.