What Is Tellie? The Mac Teleprompter That Follows Your Voice

Tellie is a Mac teleprompter that listens to what you actually say and scrolls word by word to match, instead of running at a fixed speed you have to chase. It lives in the MacBook notch area near your camera, stays invisible to screen recording and video-call apps, and processes everything on-device. It's built for Apple silicon Macs (M1 or later) running macOS 14 or later, and it's aimed at anyone who records videos, hosts calls, or presents on camera and wants their script to keep up with them rather than the other way around.

How it differs from a normal teleprompter

A conventional teleprompter sets a scroll speed and forces you to keep pace. If you pause, ad-lib, or skip a line, you're now out of sync and have to find your place while still talking.

Tellie inverts that. Click the mic and it follows the words you say, one at a time, and waits while you pause. Go off script and it holds your place. Skip a line and it finds you again. The site's own framing is blunt about the contrast: "Still scrolling" versus "Tellie follows your words."

Where it appears, and who can see it

Tellie hangs from the notch near your camera and hides there when you're done. The placement matters for a practical reason: it sits right under the camera, so your eyes stay near the lens and on the people you're talking to rather than darting to a side window.

It's invisible to screen recording, Zoom, Meet, and FaceTime. You can record your whole screen and your words stay yours — the audience sees you, not the script. The site illustrates this with a side-by-side: "What you see" versus "What your recording sees."

On-device by design

Nothing leaves your Mac. The processing happens locally, so your script and your speech aren't being sent anywhere to make the voice-following work. If you handle sensitive material or just don't want your drafts on someone else's server, that's the relevant property.

Stagehand: tracking what you've covered (Pro)

Tellie Pro adds a feature called Stagehand for people who need to hit specific points rather than read a script verbatim:

1. Flag what matters — mark a section as must-cover. It turns green as you cover it.
2. Say it your way — the check-off works even when you phrase things in your own words, not the exact script text.
3. Time awareness — if time gets tight, Tellie nudges you while there's still room to cover everything.

This is the feature to weigh if your problem isn't reading a script but remembering to include three specific points in a live or recorded segment.

Trying it and what it costs

Downloads unlock all of Tellie for 10 days — no account and no card required, per the site. After that, Tellie Pro is listed at $29 once (checkout runs through Lemon Squeezy). The site points to a Free vs. Pro feature comparison if you want the full side-by-side before deciding.

Who this is for

• You record talking-head videos and want to look at the lens, not a scrolling wall of text.
• You host or join video calls where reading notes on screen would be visible or awkward.
• You present from a script but speak naturally, pausing and paraphrasing as you go.
• You need to hit required points under time pressure — that's the Stagehand case.

If you read a script word-for-word at a steady pace and never deviate, a fixed-speed teleprompter already does the job and Tellie's main advantage won't matter much to you. The value shows up specifically when your delivery is uneven — pauses, ad-libs, skipped lines — and you'd rather the tool absorb that than fight it.