PowerCue for Mac
Stop performing for a scroll wheel. Paste your script, hit Follow, and just talk. PowerCue listens on your Mac and keeps your next line at the marker. Pause and it waits. Speed up and it keeps pace.
One‑time purchase · 14‑day money back
Classic teleprompters scroll at one speed: theirs. You chase the text, flatten your delivery, and re-record the takes where it ran away from you.
PowerCue scrolls at the speed you speak. On-device speech recognition tracks your place word by word and keeps the current line at your marker.
Pause and it waits. Wander and it re-anchors. The script sits still while you riff, then follows again the moment you return to your lines.
The karaoke highlight rides your voice, the marker shows exactly where to look, and numbered jump markers snap you to any section in one click.
PowerCue listens through the mic you choose and scrolls as you speak, with the spoken words lighting up karaoke-style. Prefer a classic scroll? Play mode paces by seconds per line, or by the exact run time you give it.
I got tired of teleprompter apps, so I built one. Three and a half minutes on how it works.
Voice tracking, marker discipline, timing, mirror rigs: the jobs of a prompter operator, running quietly on your Mac.
Apple's on-device speech recognition tracks your place word by word. Nothing is recorded and nothing leaves your Mac.
Apple's on-device speech recognition tracks your place word by word. Stumble and start the line again, and it jumps back to it. Nothing is recorded, nothing leaves your Mac, and it works with the network unplugged. Pick any input: built-in mic, USB, your interface, or the phone in front of you.
The word you are saying lights up, and settles on your last word when you pause.
The word you are saying lights up as colored text or a pill, timed to sit with your voice and settle on your last word when you pause. Fade what you have read, by word or by line. Mark key words yourself with highlighter color blocks that carry to the prompter and the phone. It rides your voice in Follow mode and the pace indicator in Play mode, in the prompter and the editor both.
Flip the prompter window so it reads correctly through beam‑splitter glass.
Flip the detached prompter window horizontally, vertically or both, controls included, so it reads correctly through beam-splitter glass. Put it on any display; the editor keeps a true, unflipped preview.
Drop numbered markers through the script and jump to any section in one click.
Drop numbered markers through the script and name them. Jump from the badge in the margin, from the markers panel, with next and previous buttons under the prompter, or by typing the number. Drag a row in the panel and its whole section moves with it: rearrange a script in seconds. Keys 1 to 9 jump to a marker, and the arrow keys scroll the prompter.
Camera notes and b‑roll cues stay visible while you write and never appear on the prompter.
Mark camera notes and b-roll cues as screen directions with one shortcut. They stay visible while you write, never appear on the prompter, never confuse the voice tracking, and still export to Word.
Elapsed, remaining and time of day, anywhere on screen.
Elapsed, remaining and time of day, in any combination, 12 or 24 hour. Drag it anywhere, resize it from the corner, tune its colors and transparency, and mirror it into the editor with its own independent size.
Give the script a run time, and Play mode paces it to land on time.
Give the script a run time (type 11625, get 1:16:25) and Play mode paces the whole script to land on it, while the editor margin shows a time estimate at every paragraph. Estimates export to Word for your producer.
Import from Word with the formatting intact, and export back to a real .docx.
Import scripts from Word, RTF or plain text with the formatting intact: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, colors, Word's highlighter. [Bracketed] notes become screen directions and Word headings become named jump markers. Export goes back to a real .docx with the same conventions, so a script can round-trip through a client's edits.
Autosave from the first word, with versions you can roll back to.
Autosave from the first word, project files you can save anywhere and reopen from Open Recent, and automatic versions you can roll back to when a rewrite goes sideways.
A free app turns any iPhone or iPad into a second prompter screen.
A free app turns any iPhone or iPad on your Wi-Fi into a second prompter screen, in lock-step with the Mac: same line breaks, same karaoke highlight, same timer. Run Follow, Play and the markers from the phone, and let it be the microphone that drives Follow.
Made for the studio you already have. PowerCue runs the prompter on your main display, a second monitor, an iPad via Sidecar, a beam-splitter rig, or an iPhone or iPad running the free companion app. If a screen is in your studio, PowerCue can prompt on it. New in beta: put a live camera or virtual camera feed behind the text, dimmed to taste.
PowerCue Companion finds your Mac over Wi-Fi and becomes a wireless prompter screen. No cables, no Sidecar, no setup: open the app and the script is there.
54 languages and regions on macOS 26 and later, all recognized on your Mac. Pick yours from the globe menu under the prompter. Write in another language and PowerCue notices, and offers to switch.
30 languages and regions on Apple's live-speech engine, built for reading out loud.
24 languages and regions on Apple's on-device dictation engine. Just as private, though following can be a little less precise than on the main engine.
The first use of a language downloads its speech model from Apple once. On macOS 14 and 15, a language is available once Dictation is turned on for it in System Settings, Keyboard.
The whole app, nothing held back.
One-time purchase. No subscription, ever.
Requires an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
The same voice-following teleprompter on Windows. Join the waitlist and you will be first into the beta, with early-bird launch pricing locked in.
Updates & ownership. Your license is permanent. Every update through version 1.x is free, including macOS compatibility fixes. A future major version will be a paid upgrade, always discounted for existing owners. If a product is ever retired I will say so rather than go quiet: the final version stays downloadable and your license keeps working. Refunds: if it is not for you, email apps@rafaelludwig.com within 14 days of purchase and you get your money back, no questions asked.
No. PowerCue uses Apple's on-device speech recognition to track your place in the script. The audio is analyzed live on your Mac and discarded; nothing is recorded, stored, or sent anywhere. The only network calls the app makes are license activation and the update check.
No, not for PowerCue. On macOS 26 and later you will not see that dialog at all: PowerCue uses Apple's newer on-device engine, which needs only the microphone permission. On macOS 14 and 15 the dialog appears, and that sentence is Apple's standard notice, shown to every app that asks for Speech Recognition whether or not it uses the online engine. PowerCue requests Apple's on-device engine only (it refuses to run any other way), so audio and recognized text never leave your Mac. You can confirm it yourself: unplug the network and Follow keeps working.
Press Follow and PowerCue listens through the microphone you picked, matches what you say against the script word by word, and scrolls so the line you are speaking sits at your marker. Pause and it waits. Ad-lib and the script holds still, then re-anchors when you come back to your lines. Stumble and restart a line, and it jumps back to it. Edit the script mid-session and it re-syncs to your place.
Use Play mode: a classic timed scroll, paced either by a seconds-per-line speed slider or by a total run time you set (the script then finishes exactly on time). The karaoke highlight still tracks the pace marker, and the spacebar starts and stops either mode.
Yes. Detach the prompter window, drag it to the display feeding your glass, and flip it horizontally, vertically or both. The whole window flips, controls included, and the editor keeps a normal unflipped preview that stays perfectly in sync.
The prompter is a normal Mac window: put it fullscreen on any connected display, a second monitor, a projector, or an iPad via Sidecar. For a wireless screen, install the free PowerCue Companion on an iPhone or iPad on the same Wi-Fi: it finds your Mac, mirrors the prompter in lock-step, and can even act as the microphone. The edit window keeps a live preview, and scrolling any surface moves them all.
Everywhere except the European Union for now. The Companion app is waiting on approval for the EU App Store storefronts, so it cannot yet be downloaded in: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. It will be available there as soon as approval comes through. PowerCue for Mac itself is not affected and works in every country; the companion is an optional extra.
No. PowerCue is complete on the Mac. The companion is a free extra for when the screen you want to read from is an iPhone or iPad: mounted at the lens, in a beam-splitter rig, or just propped next to the camera. Turn on "Serve the prompter to companion devices" in PowerCue's Settings, open the app on the device, and it connects on its own.
Yes, in beta. Turn on the video feed and PowerCue shows a live camera behind the prompter text, in the preview, the prompter window, or both: a webcam, a capture card, Continuity Camera, or a virtual camera such as Ecamm Live or OBS. Dim it so the text stays readable, mirror it, and tune the text's drop shadow. It is off by default, nothing is recorded, and nothing leaves your Mac.
On macOS 26 and later, 54 languages and regions, all recognized on your Mac. English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese run on Apple's live-speech engine; Dutch, the Nordic languages, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and more are in beta on Apple's on-device dictation engine. Pick yours from the globe menu under the prompter, or in Settings, Follow; if your script is in another language, PowerCue offers to switch. On macOS 14 and 15 a language is available once Dictation is turned on for it in System Settings.
The full list is in Languages above.
Yes: drag the file onto the editor, or use File, Import Script. It reads .docx, RTF and plain text, keeping bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, colors and Word's highlighter. Put camera notes in [square brackets] and they import as screen directions; use Word's Heading style (or a line starting with ###) for section starts and they import as named jump markers. Export writes the same conventions back, markers as real Word headings, so the script can go to Word and come home with everything in place.
Camera notes, b-roll cues, wardrobe reminders: select the text and press one shortcut. The note stays visible in the editor (and can be toggled on the prompter if you want it), the voice tracking ignores it, and it exports with the script. Your talent never reads it by accident.
An Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, and a microphone (the built-in one works fine). PowerCue asks for microphone permission on first Follow (on macOS 14 and 15, speech recognition permission too); recognition runs entirely on-device.
Seven days with every feature unlocked. When it ends, the app locks until you enter a license key; your scripts and projects are kept safe and are all there the moment you unlock. Buy once and the key is yours forever.
Yes. If PowerCue is not for you, email apps@rafaelludwig.com within 14 days of purchase and you get your money back, no questions asked. With the free trial before buying, that is three weeks to be completely sure.
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