Listen to research papers on your Mac
Scroll reads research papers aloud on your Mac and explains them while you skim. Scroll fast and it gives you the abstract and headline claims; slow down and it walks through the method and results; stop on a passage and ask about it by voice — all without leaving the PDF or the journal page.
It is built for people who work through a stack of papers a week and need the argument, not just the audio.
How Scroll works for reading papers
Skim and let it explain
Toggle Look and read the paper normally. Scroll watches your pace, explains each section as you reach it, and briefly highlights key terms and claims on the page.
Interrogate the section on screen
Ask out loud — “what's the contribution here?” or “how big is the effect?” — about the part of the paper you're looking at, and keep the conversation open across follow-ups.
Hear the body text verbatim
Read Aloud picks the relevant body content, skips figure captions and reference lists, and speaks the prose so you can listen to a section with your eyes off the screen.
What it handles
- Reads PDFs in Preview, Safari's PDF viewer, and in-browser viewers, plus arXiv and journal web pages in Safari and Chrome.
- Uses Vision OCR for scanned or image-only papers, so older scans still get read.
- Cloud narration uses your own OpenAI API key; a fully local-only mode reads unpublished or embargoed drafts without anything leaving your Mac.
- Scroll-paced depth means a fast pass gives the gist and stopping gives the deepest explanation your settings allow.
- Runs on macOS 26 Tahoe or later; one-time $49 purchase, lifetime license for up to three Macs.
Questions, answered
Can Scroll read PDFs of research papers?
Yes. Scroll reads PDFs in Preview, Safari's PDF viewer, and in-browser viewers. It extracts the text on-device and can either explain it as you scroll or read the body prose aloud, skipping reference lists and figure captions.
Does it work with arXiv and journal websites?
Yes. Scroll reads arXiv abstracts and full-text pages, plus journal sites, in Safari and Chrome. Because it reads what's on screen, you don't have to download or paste the paper — open it and toggle Look or Read Aloud.
Can it handle scanned or math-heavy papers?
Scroll uses Vision OCR for scanned or image-only PDFs, so older scans are still read. Heavy equations are read as the surrounding prose describes them; Scroll focuses on explaining the argument rather than dictating every symbol.
Is my unpublished draft sent anywhere?
Only if you use cloud mode. Turn on local-only mode and comprehension runs on Apple's on-device models with the system voice, so an embargoed or unpublished draft never leaves your Mac. No OpenAI key is needed for local-only mode.
Keep reading
Read less. Understand more.
Try Scroll free for 7 days with email only, or keep it forever for $49. Requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later.