Open an accessible Medium story in Chrome or Edge and listen with CastReader. On mobile, connect Medium to bring an article feed into the app. Member-only stories still require Medium access.
We are living through a fundamental shift in how humans process written content. The average person encounters more text in a single day than a medieval scholar read in a year.
Audio transforms dead time into learning time. Your morning commute, evening walk, or household chores become opportunities to absorb articles, research, and stories.
CastReaderReads Medium articles aloud — word-by-word highlighting follows along
Start with the story you can access and choose how to listen.
Open the story
Open the story in Chrome or Edge, sign in to Medium if needed, then start CastReader and verify the opening paragraphs.
Article extraction
CastReader targets the story body. Layout changes can affect extraction; select the passage you want if navigation or related content enters the queue.
Follow along
Follow the highlighted paragraph on supported story pages and adjust playback speed in the player.
Free to start
On-device speech and AI features have different account and usage limits. AI reading and Explain require sign-in; see pricing for current allowances and Pro options.
Platform audio, article sync and membership access.
Active Medium members can use Listen, currently for English stories. Find it below the title on the website or at the top of a story in the app. See Medium’s audio help.
Install the Chrome or Edge extension, open an accessible full story, start CastReader and check that the opening paragraphs match.
Connect Medium in CastReader’s Reading sources and sign in on Medium’s website. The source loads followed publications or For You recommendations, not every saved story. Follow the connection steps.
No. Member-only stories still require the appropriate Medium access. A title or excerpt in the feed does not establish access to the full story.
Page layouts can affect extraction. Check the opening paragraphs, and select the text you want if unrelated content is included.
It is free to start. On-device reading and AI features have different requirements; AI reading and Explain require sign-in and have usage limits. See current plans.
On supported story pages, adjust speed in the player and follow the highlighted paragraph.
Check your client’s voice picker for available languages, voices and features, and preview a voice before a long story.
Hard numbers — not vibes — from authoritative sources
$2.22 billion
US audiobook sales in 2024, up 13% year-over-year (Publishers Weekly / Audio Publishers Association)
Source →51%
of US adults have listened to an audiobook in 2025 — roughly 134 million people (APA Consumer Survey 2025)
Source →2.2 billion
people globally with near- or far-vision impairment (WHO Fact Sheet, 2024). TTS is the primary access path for digital reading content.
Source →78%
of audiobook listeners multitask while listening — commute, chores, exercise (Audiolibrix Great Audiobook Survey, 2024)
Source →27.2 minutes
average single-trip US commute in 2024, up from 26.8 (US Census ACS via Statista). That's nearly an hour each day of audio-only time.
Source →effect size 0.35
measured comprehension lift from TTS for reading-disabled students across 22 studies (Wood, Moxley, Tighe & Wagner, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2018)
Source →15.5 million
US adults with ADHD per CDC 2024 — about half diagnosed in adulthood (CDC MMWR, October 2024)
Source →Every Chrome Web Store review below is verifiable at the link in each card. We don't hide negative feedback — we answer it within 24 hours.
“This is 1 of the best TTS and its smooth. If this is truly free i'll keep this 100%. Every other TTS says its free but has a secret. They interrupt or they just say better ai voices pay. But i like this voice. I've tried loads and this is 1 of the best ones that actually says free.”
“Works perfectly on vivaldi. One suggestion though. I wish it had a play button appear next to a paragraph when we hover over it. Just like in the case of speechify.”
“Extremely user friendly short keys. Placed forward backward and speed up down as Natural as it could be. Voices are great and smooth. I would recommend it over many hyped products.”
“At the very least it's better than many paid TTS models. Still not as good as ElevenReader or LAP, but maybe the best free model for TTS.”
“So glad I can finally switch voices! The default was fine but I found one I actually enjoy listening to for hours. Small thing, huge difference.”
“Best one i found, user friendly, and great voice over.”
“ChatGPT's long answers are finally listenable. Let it generate while I listen — doubles my productivity. Love the inline button next to each response.”
“I tried using this add-on to listen to an ebook on the O'Reilly learning platform, and it works smoothly. However, it always restarts from the first paragraph whenever I scroll or select a different paragraph. Please consider adding a bookmark or checkpoint feature so users can mark where the reading should begin.”
↪ Founder reply
Replied by CastReader founder Yan Xu within 48 hours: acknowledged the issue, shipped a bookmark feature in the following release. Reviewer's verbatim feedback drove the v1.2 roadmap.
“Need to highlight text and select it.”
“Hard to select text.”
↪ Founder reply
Replied by CastReader founder Yan Xu within 24 hours: apologized, asked which site/browser the issue occurred on, provided a workaround using the keyboard shortcut, and offered direct support at support@castreader.ai.
We re-test, re-write, and ship continuously. Every entry has a real date.
Rewrote landing pages with verbatim Chrome Web Store testimonials, real audiobook market data, and tested-12-extensions methodology. Every claim now has a sourceable link.
CastReader provides native apps for iPhone and Android; Android downloads are available directly from Google Play.
Wrote up the OCR pipeline: how CastReader handles Amazon's 184 random font alphabets and 361 unique glyphs per Kindle book. Shared in dev.to.
The phone app flow now has its own landing page for bookshelf sync, Read Aloud, synced highlighting, auto-scroll, background playback, and resume progress.
Ranked #10 in Daily, 99 upvotes, 4 community comments shaped the v1.2 roadmap.
Switched from older TTS engines to Kokoro neural voices. User reviews shifted from 'usable but robotic' to 'enjoy listening for hours' (verbatim from review by patrick chiang).
OCR success rate improved from 78% to 89% on English-language Kindle books. Multi-column page detection added for academic PDFs.
I built CastReader because I owned hundreds of Kindle books and couldn't listen to them on my morning runs without buying separate Audible copies. The technical problem — Amazon's Cloud Reader font encryption — turned out to be solvable with OCR. The product problem — making it actually pleasant across different devices and languages — took two years of iteration. We're a small team. I answer every Chrome Web Store review personally (see testimonials above — including the 3-star and 1-star ones). If something's broken or missing, email support@castreader.ai.
— Yan Xu, founder
Last reviewed: · CastReader Team — reviewed against 2025 testing data
Check that you can access the story, then choose the browser or mobile route.
Listen to supported articles, Kindle books and AI conversations right on the page.
Your first read in SafariiPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets
Explore the appCastReader for Mac is available on the App Store for macOS 14.6 or later. The Safari extension is a separate download. CastReader for Windows is available on Microsoft Store.
Available now · macOS 14.6+
Available now
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