Timber Review 2026: A private, on-device read-aloud LLM reader for iPhone and Mac
Timber turns articles, books, PDFs, and pasted text into natural-voice audio entirely on your iPhone or Mac. No account required, and nothing you read is ever sent to the cloud.
What Timber Does
Timber is an offline read-aloud app for iOS and macOS that reads any article, book, PDF, or pasted text in natural voices that live on your device. A teacher built it after watching a student struggle to read a page β the goal was the best free, private vocal reader for iOS. There is no account to create and not one word of what you read is sent to the vendor.
Key Features
- 324+ free voices across 71 languages, all rendered on-device (Piper, Kokoro, Pocket, Supertonic, KittenTTS, Moss, plus Apple system voices)
- Word-by-word highlighting as it reads, with dyslexia mode, dimmable night reading, and Dynamic Type
- Timber Tabs gathers browser tabs into a listening queue and syncs to iPhone, or exports a portable
.timberlist - On-device summaries and translation, plus iCloud sync in your own private iCloud
- Accessibility-first: VoiceOver labels, reduced-motion, and high-contrast support built in and free
Who Should Use Timber
Anyone who wants to listen to long reads without sacrificing privacy β students, commuters, dyslexic readers, and people who just prefer audio. If your reading material is sensitive (legal, medical, personal), on-device processing is the whole point.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Genuinely private: reading content and clipboard never leave the device
- Generous free tier β the core reader is complete with no paywall
- Wide language and voice reach for an offline engine
Cons
- Pro unlocks the full voice catalog, variable speed (0.3xβ3x), CarPlay, and cloned-voice retention
- Requires iOS 18 or later for the main reader
- Speech-out dictation is still listed as coming soon
Pricing
Free to start, no account. Pro is an optional tip jar that unlocks the full voice catalog, variable speed, unlimited dialogue voices, extra themes, CarPlay, and cloned-voice retention. Everything on the free side stays free.
FAQ
Does Timber send my reading to the cloud?
No. Content and clipboard are processed on the phone and never transmitted for ads or analytics.
Which platforms are supported?
iPhone (iOS 18+) and Mac, with a browser extension for tab capture on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc, and Opera.
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