u/ritzynitz

Hey everyone,

OpenVox 2.1.0 for Mac is live, and this is probably the biggest update since I added the Local API.

The main new feature is Select & Read, which turns OpenVox into also a local read-aloud app for Mac.

You can now highlight text in almost any Mac app and have OpenVox read it aloud using a global shortcut. So instead of copying text into a TTS app, you can select text in Safari, Notes, Mail, Chrome, PDFs, documents, or other apps and listen instantly.

I know a lot of people use apps like Speechify for reading articles, documents, and long text, but I wanted to build something that runs locally on the Mac, uses local AI voices, and does not send the text to a cloud TTS service. I recommend to use Supertonic model for this feature since it is light weight and fast and is language agnostic so can read anything in 30+ languages.

What’s new in OpenVox 2.1:

• Added Select & Read to read selected text aloud from any Mac app using a global shortcut.
• Added a compact notch-style player for Select & Read playback.
• Added menu bar mode with quick access to show the app, change voice/speed, and start or stop the Local API.
• Added startup options for launching OpenVox in window mode or menu bar mode.
• Added Start OpenVox at Login setting.
• Improved audiobook generation and export progress overlays with clearer chapter and full-book progress.
• Improved audiobook delete options so you can delete the full book or only generated audio.
• Added global word replacement settings under Text Preprocessing, including support for pause tags.
• Fixed multiple bugs in the Audiobook workflow.

The bigger idea with this update is that OpenVox is no longer just a text-to-speech generator where you paste text and export audio. It can now also work as a local AI reading tool that sits in your menu bar and reads selected text whenever you need it.

For people looking for a Speechify alternative on Mac, the difference is that OpenVox runs on-device using local voice models. After the model is downloaded, the reading and voice generation happen locally on your Mac.

No cloud upload for reading.
No monthly credits for local usage.
No account required.
No tracking.

This update also improves the audiobook workflow quite a bit, especially progress overlays and delete options. So if you use OpenVox for long-form text-to-speech, EPUB/PDF reading, or audiobook generation, 2.1 should feel much smoother.

If you try 2.1 and anything feels broken, buggy, or awkward, please let me know. This is a big update, so I’d really appreciate feedback on what needs fixing or polishing.

Download: https://openvoxai.com/

Just pushed OpenVox Windows 1.5.0.

This update is mostly focused on making the app feel smoother and more practical for real long-form work, especially batch generation and audiobooks.

What’s new:

AI Speech / Batch Mode

• Improved batch mode layout and scrolling
• Added Export All for batch audio generations
• Updated speed control range to 0.50x to 1.50x with 0.01 precision
• More UI polish across the app

Voice Library

• Cleaned up filters
• Fixed tag dropdown behavior
• Removed duplicate language entries
• Added starred voice filtering, so favorite voices are easier to find

Audiobooks

• Added chapter creation
• Added chapter reordering
• Added chapter title editing
• Improved chapter controls
• Playback pause state now works better
• Redesigned Audiobook generation progress with book cover, book title, chapter status, chapter progress, and overall audiobook progress.
• Generate All now resumes correctly by skipping already generated chapters
• Faster M4A / M4B export
• Improved M4B chapter metadata compatibility for audiobook reader apps

This update should make OpenVox much better for anyone generating longer content, audiobooks, batches, courses, meditations, narration, or multi-file projects locally on Windows.

As always, feedback is welcome. I’m still polishing the Windows version heavily based on user reports.

Download: https://openvoxai.com/

Hey everyone,

I posted OpenVox here about a month ago when it was around v1.6.4.

Since then, I’ve shipped quite a lot based on feedback from this subreddit, and OpenVox is now at v2.0.0.

First, thank you.

A lot of the improvements came directly from people here who tried the app, reported bugs, asked for better audiobook support, wanted faster models, requested API/automation use cases, and pointed out rough edges I honestly would not have prioritized this quickly on my own.

For anyone seeing it for the first time:

OpenVox started as a Mac app and is now also available on iPad and Windows, but this post is mainly about the Mac version.

It is a local AI voice app for text-to-speech, voice cloning, audiobooks, multi-speaker conversations, voice changing, and Local API workflows.

The main idea:

No monthly credits.
No cloud upload for generation.
No subscription.
Runs locally on Apple Silicon.

Since my last r/macapps post, the biggest updates are:

OpenVox 2.0

• Added Supertonic 3 with support for 31 languages
• Much faster long-form generation. On my M4 Mac, around 4,800 characters took 22.9s with Supertonic 3 vs 38.4s with Kokoro
• Added Pocket TTS for fast low-latency generation, audiobooks, conversations, and Local API workflows
• Improved Voice Clone with waveform trimming, zoom, preview, drag handles, and better quality checks
• Added Local API playback, so scripts/agents can generate speech and play it directly in OpenVox
• Improved audiobooks with cover artwork, better M4A/M4B export, better chapters, and more reliable long exports
• Expanded Conversations from 4 speakers to up to 16 speakers
• Added reusable parameter presets, pause tags like <500ms> and <1s>, default language/voice selection, portable voice backup, easier Settings access, and many crash fixes

Current model lineup includes:

• Supertonic 3 — fast multilingual TTS, 31 languages
• Pocket TTS — fast low-latency model, good for agents and long-form use
• Kokoro — fast and stable for long-form generation
• OmniVoice — expressive multilingual model with 600+ language coverage
• Qwen3 TTS — high-quality voice cloning and voice design
• Chatterbox Turbo & Multilingual — expressive / character-style voices

Comparison:
I’d compare it with Voicebox and Murmur TTS. Voicebox is a strong open-source/cross-platform voice lab, but OpenVox Mac version is Mac-native and includes a bundled voice library, audiobook workflows, voice cloning, voice design, voice conversion, history, export, and Local API in one app. Murmur TTS is good for local narration and has a large voice library, but OpenVox is priced lower and is broader as a complete local voice studio with audiobooks, API workflows, 300+ voices, and 600+ language coverage through OmniVoice.

Pricing:
OpenVox has a free tier with:

• 5,000 characters/day for AI speech generation
• 100 seconds/day for voice conversion
• 600+ language coverage with OmniVoice
• 5 local models
• 3 custom voice clones
• 10 saved voice designs
• EPUB audiobook workflows
• WAV export

OpenVox Pro is a $19.99 one-time purchase per platform. No subscription, no recurring fees, and no per-generation character billing on Pro.

I’m still improving it actively, and the public roadmap is here:

https://openvoxai.com/roadmap

I also created a small subreddit for development updates, feedback, bugs, and feature requests:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenVoxAI/

For this post, I’ll also share some promo codes randomly with people who leave a comment while supplies last.

I’m especially looking for feedback from Mac users who care about:

• local AI tools
• privacy-first apps
• audiobook generation
• YouTube / podcast voiceovers
• voice cloning
• automation / local API workflows
• avoiding monthly cloud TTS subscriptions

Download and more info:
https://openvoxai.com/

Thanks again to everyone here who tried the earlier version, criticized it, reported issues, or suggested features.

OpenVox is honestly getting better because of this community.

Just released OpenVox 2.0.0 for Mac, and this update adds Supertonic 3 as a new TTS model.

I also made a quick video comparing generation speed between Kokoro and Supertonic 3 on the same long text, around 4,800 characters, tested on an M4 Mac.

Result:

Kokoro: 38.4 seconds
Supertonic 3: 22.9 seconds

That is a pretty big difference for long-form voice generation, especially if you are creating audiobooks, YouTube scripts, podcasts, or batch voiceovers.

Supertonic 3 also supports 31 languages, so it should be useful for people creating multilingual content locally on Mac.

Kokoro is still great and very lightweight, but Supertonic 3 gives another strong option when speed and language coverage matter.

Available now in OpenVox Mac 2.0.0.

Would love to know what kind of speed others are getting on their Macs.

Hey everyone,

OpenVox Windows 1.4.0 is now available, and this update adds Supertonic 3 as a new TTS model.

This one was added for a very specific reason: fast CPU-only inference.

A lot of Windows users do not have a powerful NVIDIA GPU, or they are using laptops, mini PCs, and office machines where CUDA setup is either not available or just not worth the trouble. Supertonic 3 fits really well there because it can run locally on CPU, without needing cloud generation.

So this is not just “one more model added”.

For OpenVox Windows, Supertonic 3 gives a practical option for users who want:

• Fast local TTS on CPU
• No CUDA dependency
• No cloud API call for generation
• Support for 31 languages
• A lightweight model for daily use
• A smoother option for voiceovers, narration, audiobooks, and assistant-style workflows

The idea behind OpenVox is to make these local voice models actually usable by normal people. No Python setup. No command line. No dependency fixing. Just select the model and generate speech inside the app.

If you are on Windows and wanted a faster CPU-friendly model, update to OpenVox Windows 1.4.0 and try Supertonic 3.

Would love to hear how it performs on your system.

Download: https://openvoxai.com/

The biggest change is the new guided trimming flow for Voice Clone.

Earlier, if you uploaded a longer clip, it was easy to accidentally use a noisy start, awkward silence, or a bad ending. Now you get a waveform preview, zoom, drag handles, and basic quality checks so you can trim a clean sample before cloning.

I also updated the recommended clone sample length to 5-12 seconds. Shorter, cleaner samples are giving more stable results than throwing long random clips at the model.

What’s new in 1.9.0:

• Improved Voice Clone with guided trimming for longer audio clips
• Added waveform preview, zoom, drag handles, and clean start/end quality checks
• Updated clone sample requirement to 5-12 seconds for more stable results
• Added confirmation to make sure the reference script actually matches the audio before saving the cloned voice
• Fixed Voice Changer voice selection so custom voices from all languages show correctly
• Added M4A and AIFF support in Voice Changer
• Added model parameter controls to the Local API

This should make voice cloning less guessy and more reliable, especially for people using their own recordings.

As always, thanks to everyone sending bug reports and testing weird edge cases. A lot of these fixes came directly from user feedback.

Yes, the traffic lights are gone

I updated the Windows version to feel more native now. The top-left Mac-style traffic light buttons are gone, and I replaced that area with the OpenVox logo.

Also added proper Windows window controls now: close, minimize, and maximize.

The Settings button has also been moved to the bottom-left corner, where it feels cleaner and less distracting.

A few users called out that the earlier UI felt too Mac-like for Windows, and honestly, fair feedback. I originally kept things similar across platforms to make tutorials and support easier, but Windows should still feel like Windows.

Core stability and backend performance are still the main focus, but I also want OpenVox to feel polished on every platform.

Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming.

This is one of the bigger updates for the iPad version.

Pocket TTS is now available in OpenVox iPad, and it makes longer generations much better, especially for audiobooks, conversations, and long voiceovers.

It supports English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and works with voices from your Voice Library as well as custom voice recordings.

The iPad version also now has better output quality, improved post-processing, and higher bitrate exports, so the final audio sounds cleaner and closer to the Mac and Windows versions.

A few other useful changes in this update:

• Higher quality post-processing and bitrate output
• Save default language and voice across AI Speech, Conversations, and Audiobooks
• Pause tags for precise pauses in scripts
• Parameter Presets
• Speed control added for all models

OpenVox is available on iPad, Mac, and Windows.

Download - https://openvoxai.com/

Would love to hear feedback from anyone using the iPad version.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been building an app called OpenVox. It’s a local-first AI text-to-speech app for Mac and iPad.

The main thing that made me excited to share it here: one of the models, OmniVoice, supports 600+ languages. On Mac, it runs locally on Apple Silicon after the model is downloaded.

Not just the usual English / Spanish / French tier. It supports Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Bengali, Turkish, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Swahili, Dutch, Greek, Polish, Indonesian, Czech, Portuguese, German, and a lot more.

If you’ve ever tried generating audio in a language that most TTS tools barely care about, this might be useful.

Current model lineup:

OmniVoice → 600+ languages, expressive, voice cloning

Qwen3 → high-quality speech, voice cloning, voice design

Kokoro → fast, stable, great for long-form

Chatterbox Turbo + Multilingual → expressive, character-style voices

The Mac version runs locally after the model is downloaded. No account, no telemetry, no analytics, no third-party tracking. Your text/audio generation stays on your machine.

The iPad version is also live now. It’s more focused on making it easy to generate voiceovers and audio from text directly on iPad.

Some things OpenVox supports:

Text to speech, voice cloning, voice design, audiobook generation, PDF/TXT/EPUB import, multi-speaker conversations, batch generation, and a local API on Mac.

Pricing:

Free tier (Lifetime): 5,000 chars/day, 10 Voice Designs, 3 Voice Clones

Pro (Lifetime): $19.99 one-time, no subscription

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/in/app/openvox-local-voice-ai/id6758789314

More info:
https://openvoxai.com/

Would love honest feedback from this sub, especially if you work with non-English audio, audiobooks, voiceovers, or local AI workflows.

Happy to answer questions too.

Hey everyone,

I posted OpenVox here about a month ago when it was around version 1.4.

Since then I’ve been shipping updates pretty aggressively, and the app is now at v1.6.4.

Just wanted to come back and say thanks, because a lot of the improvements were directly because of feedback I got from r/macapps

People pointed out rough edges, asked for better audiobook support, asked for automation/API use cases, reported bugs, and also gave suggestions that I probably would not have prioritized this quickly on my own.

The biggest area that changed is the audiobook workflow.

It is honestly much more polished now.

Since 1.4, I’ve added / improved:

• Local API for using OpenVox with agents, automations, and external tools
• Conversations mode for multi-speaker scripts, interviews, skits, podcasts, and dialogue
• Settings are now easier to access from the top title bar
• Audiobook export is much faster and more reliable
• M4A and M4B audiobook export support
• M4B support with better audiobook compatibility, chapters, and timeline support
• EPUB cover support inside the app
• Cover artwork embedding for exported M4A and M4B audiobooks
• Large audiobook exports now use less memory
• Batch audiobook generation progress is more accurate
• Temporary audiobook files are cleaned up better
• Removed slower MP3 export because M4A/M4B makes more sense for the audiobook flow now

The audiobook feature started pretty basic, but after all the feedback around large books, storage usage, chapters, export formats, covers, and reliability.

Still not perfect, and I know there’s more to improve, but v1.6.4 feels like a much more solid version than what I posted last month.

I also made a short video showing what changed since the earlier version.

Thanks again to everyone who tried it, criticized it, suggested things, or reported bugs.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openvox-local-voice-ai/id6758789314?mt=12

Website:
https://openvoxai.com/

I have a Mac mini M4, and for the longest time I was honestly using it like an expensive browser.

Then I started throwing actual AI workloads at it and realized how much power was just sitting there unused.

Local LLMs are fun, and yes, the Mac mini can run them. Smaller models work surprisingly well. But if we’re being honest, you’re not replacing GPT 5.5 or Opus 4.7 with local models today.

Voice felt different.

When I started testing local TTS models on Apple Silicon, I realized the quality gap between local and cloud voice had become much smaller than most people think. The models were good. The hardware was good. But the experience around them was still messy.

Too much terminal work. Too much setup. Too many scripts.

So I built OpenVox: a local AI text-to-speech app for Apple Silicon Macs.

No cloud processing. No API keys. No account. No telemetry. After the initial model download, generation runs locally on your Mac.

It supports 300+ voices across 600+ languages, with voice cloning, voice design, audiobook generation, voice changing, and normal text-to-speech.

Two recent features feel especially built for a Mac mini that sits there running 24/7:

Conversations lets you write a multi-speaker script, assign up to 4 voices, import PDF/TXT scripts, and generate the whole thing. Useful for podcasts, skits, interviews, audiobook dialogue, and character scenes.

Local API lets n8n workflows, AI agents, Python scripts, and local apps call OpenVox and get audio back from your own machine. No usage bill. No text leaving your Mac.

Free tier: 5k chars/day, all voices, all models, voice cloning, voice design, and WAV export.

Pro: $19.99 one time with unlimited generation, batch mode, MP3 export, future models, and lifetime updates.

App Store Download : https://apps.apple.com/in/app/openvox-local-voice-ai/id6758789314?mt=12

More Information: https://openvoxai.com/

What would you automate with a local TTS API running on your own Mac: AI agents, n8n workflows, Python scripts, Raycast commands, or something else?