Best Mac Notch Teleprompter Apps in 2026: An Honest Comparison
The MacBook notch turned out to be the perfect home for a teleprompter. It sits right under the camera, so you can read a script while looking almost straight into the lens, and a good app keeps that script invisible to whoever you are recording or sharing with.
Over the past year a small cluster of Mac apps have grown up around this idea, and I went through each one to see how they actually differ. I will say up front that I build one of these apps, Tellie, a Mac teleprompter that follows your voice. So I have a horse in this race. My goal here is not to crown my own app. It is to give you an honest map of the category so you pick the one that fits your work, even when that is not Tellie.
What is a MacBook notch teleprompter?
It is a Mac app that parks your script in a thin strip just below the camera notch. Because your reading line sits near the lens, you keep eye contact instead of glancing down at a second screen. The better apps add two things on top of that: voice-follow scrolling, where the text advances as you speak and pauses when you stop, and invisibility, where the strip is hidden from Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and screen recordings so your audience never sees it.
How I compared them
I looked at five things that actually matter when you are on a call or recording a take: does it follow your voice, does it stay hidden during screen sharing, does the speech run on your Mac or in the cloud, what does it cost, and what does it import. Every fact below comes from each app's own site as of June 2026. Where an app did not publish something, I say so rather than guess.
The apps at a glance
| App | Price | Free option | Voice Listen (word for word) | Hidden on screen share | On-device speech |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tellie | Free tier, Pro $29 one-time | Yes | Yes (Pro), about 50 languages | Yes, by default | Yes |
| CueNotch | $29.99 one-time | Yes (3 a day, 100 words) | No, Voice Scroll | Yes (Ghost Mode) | Yes |
| Moody | $59 one-time | No | No, Voice Scroll | Not stated, verify | Yes |
| Notchie | $9.99 a month via Setapp | Setapp 7-day trial | No, Voice Scroll | Marketed as invisible | Yes (offline) |
| NotchPrompter | Free, open source | Yes | No, Voice Scroll | No | Not stated |
The apps, one by one
CueNotch
CueNotch is the most feature-packed app in the category. Alongside notch placement, on-device voice scrolling, and a Ghost Mode that hides the overlay during screen sharing, it layers on AI extras: Magic Polish to rewrite a script, an AI Rehearsal Coach, AutoCaption for live meeting captions, and a Memorize Mode. It is $29.99 for a lifetime license, with a permanent free tier capped at three activations a day and a 100-word script. If you want the kitchen sink and you like AI assistance built in, CueNotch is the one to beat.
Moody
Moody is the most established and mature option, and at $59 one-time it is also the priciest. It does the core job well: voice-synced scrolling that pauses when you pause, a floating window you can place and resize anywhere, manual trackpad scrolling, hover-to-pause, and a voice-volume beam. Everything runs on your Mac with no cloud uploads. Moody's own page emphasizes a prompter that stays on top of full-screen apps, and I could not confirm screen-recording invisibility from its materials, so verify that if hiding the strip on Zoom is a must for you.
Notchie
Notchie is the minimalist. The interface is clean, the app is tiny, and it does voice-activated scrolling offline. It is distributed through Setapp at $9.99 a month rather than as a standalone purchase, so it is a good fit if you already pay for Setapp. Two honest caveats from public reviews: the voice activation can be inconsistent and trigger on the wrong moments, and some users hit formatting issues loading Markdown. Its listing shows a single language.
NotchPrompter
NotchPrompter is the free, open-source choice, and it is more capable than free usually implies. It scrolls when you speak, stays invisible to recordings and screen sharing, runs on macOS 14 and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel, and includes nice touches like multi-monitor support, flexible positioning, and the OpenDyslexic font. If your needs are straightforward and budget is the deciding factor, start here.
Tellie
Tellie, my app, follows your voice word by word and is invisible to Zoom and screen recorders by default, with an opt-in recordable mode for when you want to show it off. Three things set it apart. First, on-device voice follow in about 50 languages, where most rivals are English-first. Second, it opens the formats people actually receive: plain text, Markdown, RTF, Word, and PDF. Third, it has a free developer surface: you can push a line to the notch from any app, your terminal, or an AI agent. It also has a Presenter Mode that mirrors your live Keynote speaker notes into the notch. The free tier is a real teleprompter and keeps the invisibility; Pro is a $29 one-time license that adds voice follow and the power features.
Which one should you pick?
There are newer entrants too, including Textream and ShareSpeak, that are worth a look if none of the above fit. The category is moving fast.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a MacBook notch teleprompter?
- A Mac app that shows your script in a thin strip just below the camera notch, so your eyes stay near the lens while you read. The best ones scroll as you speak and stay hidden from Zoom, Google Meet, and screen recordings.
- Which Mac notch teleprompter is invisible on Zoom and screen recordings?
- Tellie, CueNotch, and NotchPrompter all state that their prompter is hidden from screen sharing and recordings by default. Notchie markets itself the same way. Confirm it on the app's page if it is essential to you.
- Is there a free Mac notch teleprompter?
- Yes. NotchPrompter is fully free and open source. Tellie has a free tier that works as a teleprompter and stays hidden from recordings. CueNotch has a limited permanent free tier.
- Which Mac teleprompter supports the most languages?
- Tellie advertises on-device voice follow in about 50 languages. Most competitors do not publish a language count, so Tellie is the strongest choice for non-English scripts.
- Can a Mac teleprompter read Word documents and PDFs?
- Tellie opens plain text, Markdown, RTF, Word, and PDF. Several competitors focus on Markdown or pasted text, so check the supported formats if you work from documents.
About the author
I am Steve Chazin, a former Apple executive. I built Tellie, a Mac teleprompter that follows your voice and lives in the MacBook notch. I tried to keep this comparison fair, including where my own app falls short. If you spot something out of date, let me know and I will fix it.
