WordAnchor for macOS · v1.2

Read anything,
anywhere, faster.

A tiny native app that streams any text on your screen one word at a time — so your eye stops moving and the words start flowing.

Reading · sample.txt 0 / 0
WordAnchor
Global hotkey Space Universal Binary · 8.2 MB macOS 13 Ventura or later
Reading
without
moving
your
eyes.
Optimal Recognition Point Fixed anchor ·  ~⅓ from left

One point your eye can hold still on.

Every word has a letter your brain fixates on to recognize it — roughly a third of the way in. WordAnchor lines every word up on that letter and tints it red.

Your eyes stop saccading across a page. Words stream past the anchor instead, and you read at the speed your brain can parse rather than the speed your eyes can scan.

Three things, done properly.

01

Works in any app.

Select text anywhere — Safari, Mail, Notes, a PDF, a Slack thread — and press the hotkey. WordAnchor reads the selection through the macOS Accessibility API. No extensions, no copy-paste.

+ + Space
02

Smart pacing.

Fixed WPM is punishing. WordAnchor breathes at commas, rests on periods, and lingers on words longer than ten characters — so the cadence matches the prose instead of fighting it.

03

Bionic mode.

Not in the mood for RSVP? Flip to bionic: the same anchor letters stay highlighted, but the paragraph stays put. For code comments, careful reading, or when you just want to slow down.

The eye fixates on one letter per word.

Yes, within limits. RSVP won't make you a superhuman reader — comprehension drops above ~700 WPM for most people, and dense material still needs re-reading. What it will do is dissolve the friction in front of your reading backlog: the Pocket queue, the long-form you bookmarked, the docs you keep meaning to get through. It's a tool for skimming, focus, and getting the backlog down — nothing louder than that.

— one indie dev in Berlin, no VC, no roadmap meetings

Five dollars. Once.

No subscription. No account. No newsletter. Buy it, own it, use it forever.

$5
One-time · Yours forever · macOS 13+
Buy WordAnchor
Secure checkout via Stripe. 30-day refund, no questions.

Answers, briefly.

Why does WordAnchor need Accessibility permission?
So it can read the text you've selected in any app. macOS exposes selected text through the Accessibility API, which requires explicit permission. WordAnchor reads the selection on hotkey, renders it, and forgets it — nothing is stored, logged, or sent anywhere.
Apple Silicon and Intel?
Universal Binary. Native on M1/M2/M3/M4 and runs fine on Intel Macs from 2018 onward. Idle memory sits around 18 MB.
Refund policy?
30 days, no questions, no form. Email and it's done — usually same day.
Does it work in Safari, Kindle, PDFs?
Safari, Chrome, Arc, Mail, Notes, Messages, Slack, Notion desktop, Preview PDFs, Books — yes. Kindle's desktop app doesn't expose its text through the Accessibility API, so no (Amazon's choice, not mine). For DRM-free PDFs, Preview works perfectly.
Any tracking or telemetry?
None. No analytics, no crash reporter, no account, no email list. The app doesn't make a single network request unless you click "Check for Updates." That's a promise, and it's verifiable with Little Snitch.