TTS Reader

How can you listen to a book on iPhone for free?

There are three free ways: borrow a narrated audiobook from your public library in Libby or Hoopla (you need a library card), stream a public-domain classic read by volunteers from LibriVox, or let a text-to-speech app such as TTS Reader read any DRM-free ebook aloud, including about 70,000 free Project Gutenberg books. For new bestsellers the library is the right choice; for classics and your own files, LibriVox and text to speech need no card and have no waiting list.

Updated 2026-11-02

We make TTS Reader, one of the three options on this page. Facts about Libby, Hoopla, LibriVox, Project Gutenberg and Apple Podcasts come from their own pages and App Store listings, checked on 1 November 2026 and listed under Sources.

Which free option fits which book?

The three free ways to listen to a book on an iPhone differ in what you hear, which books you can get, and whether you have to wait.

Library app (Libby, Hoopla)LibriVoxText to speech (TTS Reader)
What you hearA published audiobook, read by its narratorA volunteer reading the book, sometimes a different volunteer for each chapterA synthetic voice on the iPhone reading the text, with each word highlighted
Which booksRecent and popular titles, if your library has licensed themPublic-domain books only: 21,873 catalogued works in 49 languagesAny DRM-free ebook or document you have, plus about 70,000 Project Gutenberg books in the app
What you needA card from a library that offers the serviceNothing: no account, no app of its ownAn iPhone with iOS 26 or later; no account
WaitingLibby: a hold queue when all copies are out. Hoopla: many titles at once, within a monthly limit set by your libraryNoneNone
OfflineYes, borrowed titles download to the iPhoneYes, after you download the chaptersYes; a catalog book needs internet only to download
Cannot doBooks your library does not have; keeping a title after the loan endsModern books still under copyrightKindle or other DRM-protected books; a human narrator’s performance

A quick rule: a book published in the last few decades means the library; a classic you want read by a person means LibriVox; a classic nobody has recorded, a book you want to follow on the page, or your own EPUB or PDF means text to speech.

How do you borrow a free audiobook from the library on iPhone?

Libby (from OverDrive) and Hoopla (from Midwest Tape) are free iPhone apps that lend audiobooks from public libraries. Libby says “All you need is a library card”; Hoopla says you need “a library card from a participating public library”. Neither has a subscription.

  1. Install Libby or Hoopla from the App Store. Libby requires iOS 13 or later, Hoopla iOS 17 or later.
  2. Find your library in the app and sign in with your library card number (and PIN, if your library uses one). If your library does not appear in Libby, it may not have a digital collection with OverDrive; try Hoopla, or ask the library which service it uses.
  3. Search for the book and filter by audiobook.
  4. Tap Borrow. In Libby you pick a lending period. If every copy is on loan, place a hold: Libby notifies you when the title is ready, and you then have 72 hours to borrow it, suspend the hold or cancel it.
  5. Listen. Libby downloads book and audiobook loans for offline use by default when you are on Wi-Fi; Hoopla lets you stream or download.

Libby or Hoopla? In Libby, each copy the library holds goes to one reader at a time, so popular books often have a waiting list. In Hoopla, many titles are “ready to borrow the moment you find them”, but your library sets how many you can borrow, and which titles are available also varies by library. Titles return themselves when the loan ends, so there are no late fees. Many libraries offer both; using both widens the choice.

How do you listen to LibriVox audiobooks on iPhone?

LibriVox is a volunteer project that records books in the public domain and gives the recordings away. Its home page says the audiobooks are “free for anyone to listen to” and lists 21,873 catalogued works in 49 languages, read by 14,949 volunteers (1 November 2026). LibriVox does not make its own iPhone app, but every book has a podcast feed, so the free Apple Podcasts app works as a player:

  1. In Safari, open librivox.org and search the catalog for the book.
  2. On the book’s page, copy the link labelled RSS Feed.
  3. In Apple Podcasts, go to Library, tap the … button, choose Add a Show by URL, paste the link and tap Follow.
  4. Each chapter appears as an episode. Download the episodes to listen offline.

If you only want to try a chapter, each catalog page also has a Play link for every section, and download links for the whole book. Some books have several LibriVox versions by different readers; the catalog page names the reader of each chapter, so you can pick a voice you like before committing to a 13-hour novel.

The limit is the catalog: LibriVox records only books in the public domain, so you will find Austen, Dickens and Twain, but not this year’s prize winners.

How do you listen to any ebook for free with text to speech?

A text-to-speech app reads the words of an ebook aloud, so it works for books that no one has recorded. TTS Reader is free, with no purchases, subscription, ads or account, and its voices run on the iPhone, so it reads without an internet connection.

  1. Install TTS Reader (iPhone, iOS 26 or later) and pick a voice.
  2. For a free classic, search the built-in Project Gutenberg catalog of about 70,000 public-domain books and download the book. Project Gutenberg itself lists 79,708 free ebooks, with “no fees, no registration”.
  3. For your own book, open a DRM-free EPUB, PDF, Word document or text file from the Files app, or share it to TTS Reader from Mail or Safari.
  4. Press play. The current sentence and word are highlighted; tap any sentence to start there, and set the speed from 0.5× to 3×. Reading continues with the screen locked.

TTS Reader reads 31 languages and picks a matching voice automatically: 10 multilingual voices are built in, and 15 optional English voices are a one-time download of about 190 MB. Following highlighted text while listening helps many people with dyslexia or ADHD keep their place in a long book; it is a reading aid, not a treatment.

Coming soon to the App Store

When is a library app or LibriVox better than TTS Reader?

A synthetic voice is not a performance. For a novel you want to enjoy as a story, a narrated audiobook from the library, or a LibriVox reader you like, will usually be more pleasant than text to speech, and the library is the only free, legal way on this list to hear a current bestseller. TTS Reader is the better fit when:

TTS Reader cannot open Kindle books or other DRM-protected ebooks, and it cannot play library audiobooks. Those stay in their own apps.

Can you listen to a Kindle or Apple Books ebook for free?

Yes, inside the app where you bought it, with the iPhone’s built-in Speak Screen. Books from the Kindle store or Apple Books often carry DRM, so they open only in those apps, and text-to-speech apps such as TTS Reader cannot import them. In iOS 26, turn on Speak Screen in Settings → Accessibility → Read & Speak, open the book and swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen. It reads with Apple’s voices and costs nothing. The details, and which ebooks are DRM-free, are on how to read EPUB books aloud on iPhone.

Which free options work without internet?

All three work offline once the book is on the iPhone. Libby downloads loans over Wi-Fi by default, and Hoopla has offline downloads. LibriVox chapters play offline after you download the episodes in Apple Podcasts. TTS Reader needs internet only to download a catalog book; after that, and for your own files, the voices read entirely on the device. More on that in offline text to speech on iPhone.

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