Install Speakybara on Windows
About two minutes, and you end up with a blue icon in the system tray and one hotkey that does the work.
Speakybara is a free app for Windows and Mac that turns any part of your screen into text you can copy or listen to. There is no account, no email address, no trial and no card, so installing is genuinely just downloading and running it. This guide is for Windows; on a Mac, the three steps are on the download page.
It needs Windows 10 (build 19041) or newer, Windows 11 recommended. It uses about 55 MB of memory (plus about 60 MB while a local Piper voice is loaded) and 0 MB of video memory, so no graphics card is involved. Disk space: About 320 MB on Windows, a Dutch and an English local voice included; about 50 MB on a Mac. Each extra local voice adds about 60 MB.
Installing, step by step
Step 1
Download the app
The download page has one button for Windows, with the version number and the file size next to it; the Mac has its own button further down. There is nothing to choose between: everyone gets the same free app.
Step 2
Unzip, run it and pass SmartScreen
Right-click the zip and choose Extract All, then double-click Speakybara.exe in the folder; starting it from inside the zip does not work. Windows shows a blue SmartScreen dialog for apps it has not seen often yet. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
This is Windows being careful about how many times it has seen a file, not a virus warning. If your workplace blocks unknown installers outright, ask whoever manages the PC.
Step 3
Find the tray icon
Speakybara opens its window and puts a blue icon in the system tray at the bottom right. Closing the window keeps the app running in the tray: click the icon to open the window again, right-click it for the menu. Windows 11 puts new icons in the overflow menu behind the ^ arrow first, so drag the blue icon from there onto the taskbar to keep it in sight.
If the icon disappears, the app was closed or crashed. It checks every 5 seconds whether its icon is still there and puts it back.
Open SpeakybaraCapture and read aloud(ctrl+alt+s)Capture and ask AI(ctrl+alt+u)Capture and choose(ctrl+alt+q)Capture and copy text(ctrl+alt+e)Read clipboard(ctrl+alt+c)Repeat last(ctrl+alt+r)Pause / resume(ctrl+alt+p)Stop(ctrl+alt+x)Focus on / off(ctrl+alt+f)Reader▸Start with WindowsQuitRight-click the tray icon: open Speakybara, the four ways to capture, the clipboard, pause and stop, the reader switches and Start with Windows. Drawn after the app itself.
Step 4
Take your first shot
Press Ctrl+Alt+S, drag a frame over any text — a scanned PDF, an image in an email, an error dialog you cannot select — and press Enter. The text recognition built into Windows reads it on your PC, in 50-150 ms, and you hear it straight away: the subtitle bar at the bottom of the screen shows the sentence, and the word being read lights up in the text itself.
Press Ctrl+Alt+E instead and the same text lands on your clipboard without being read.
Step 5
Decide whether it starts with Windows
Under Settings › Startup there is a switch Start with Windows, and the tray menu has the same one. It only puts a shortcut in your Startup folder, so deleting that shortcut does exactly the same as switching it off. Started that way, Speakybara waits in the tray without opening its window.
Worth knowing
- The subtitle bar goes wherever you put it: drag it, pull a side to make it narrower or wider, or fold it to one line. It remembers its place, and a double-click puts it back where it started.
- Reading speed is the first button on the subtitle bar, from 0.8× to 1.75×. Settings › Read along has it too.
- Capture and read aloud also puts the text on your clipboard, ready to paste. Switch that off under Settings › History.
- In Task Manager it shows up as Speakybara.exe, so searching for "speak" finds it.
- Everything lives in one folder: your settings, your history and notes, the usage counter, the local voices and the cached sentences.
If something goes wrong
No. There is no account, no email address, no trial and no card. The app is free to use, forever. At the top of Settings you will see Compleet, the subscription this website calls Complete: Google's Studio voices and an AI without keys of your own; it cannot be activated in the app yet, and nothing else depends on it.
Another program probably claimed the same combination, or the shortcut is switched off. Open Settings › Shortcuts, check that its switch is on, click the field and press a different combination; Speakybara tells you when another program already has it. The hotkeys guide walks through it.
Switch off Start with Windows in the tray menu (or delete the shortcut in your Startup folder), choose Quit and delete the Speakybara folder. Your settings, history, notes, the usage counter, the local voices and the cached sentences are all inside that folder, so they go with it.