Your questions, answered.

CueCard Teleprompter is a free teleprompter and cue cards app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The teleprompter scrolls your script while you speak, full screen or in a small window above the camera, Instagram, TikTok or a video call. Cards shows a talk one card at a time, in the app, on the Lock Screen or on your Apple Watch. It is on the App Store today, and the Android app is still being built.

CueCard opens a small window that stays above your other apps. You start the script scrolling, switch to your camera or whichever app you are recording in, and the window stays on top where you can read it. Because it sits on your screen and not in front of the lens, your camera never records it.

Not when you are filming with the camera. The prompter is a window on your screen rather than something in front of the lens, so the camera records you and your background and nothing else. Screen recording is the one exception: a screen recording captures your whole screen, prompter included, so close the prompter first if that is how you are recording. On a Mac or PC it works differently — the desktop app really is left out of screen capture.

Yes. The prompter floats above Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Facebook, X and your phone's own camera app. Record where you normally record; the script comes with you.

Yes. CueCard is free on iPhone and iPad, with no subscription, no trial and no paid tier, and the project is open source on GitHub.

Not yet. The Android app is still being built. The iPhone and iPad app is free and out now, and so is the app for Mac and Windows.

Yes, and the iPad is the best screen CueCard runs on. Read the script full width at arm's length like a studio prompter, or shrink it into a floating window over the app you are filming in. See CueCard Teleprompter on iPad.

An iPhone or iPad running iOS 17 or later, iPadOS 17 or later. The Apple Watch app needs watchOS 10 or later.

Yes. The prompter behaves the same whether you are recording, going live or on a call, and it stays above whatever is in front of it — the camera, social apps, streaming tools, meeting apps, a browser — for as long as you want it there.

A cue is a note to yourself in the middle of the script — [cue smile], [cue slow down], [cue hold for two]. CueCard draws it in its own colour so you take it in as a direction rather than reading it aloud. Tap Add Cue, or just type [, and the tag is written for you. Pick the colour every cue is drawn in from Settings.

Most people speak somewhere between 120 and 160 words a minute, and read comfortably a little under that. CueCard sets the pace in lines per minute so you can nudge it up or down between takes until it matches how you actually talk, rather than making you speed up to catch it.

Yes. Pause it, start it again, or move the speed up and down while it is running. If a sentence needs more room than you gave it, you do not have to start the take over.

Yes. Tap the timer beside the play button and set a Countdown in seconds. CueCard counts you in before the script begins to scroll, so the first line is not the one you fumble while reaching for the record button.

Yes, in both modes. Tap the timer beside the play button, set a Duration, and choose when to be warned with Warn in Last. The timer changes color at the warning and again once you run over, in colors you pick. With no timer set, it counts up from when you started.

Yes. You can make it rectangular or square, set its own text size, and drag it anywhere on screen. Make it big enough to read at arm's length and small enough to leave your face and the rest of your shot clear.

Yes. The teleprompter, the floating window, cards and the editor each have their own text size, from presets in Settings. Tap Show Advanced Settings to type an exact size.

Move the floating window as close to the front camera as you can and make it small. The smaller the window and the nearer it sits to the lens, the shorter the glance away — on camera it reads as someone thinking, not someone reading.

Yes. Tap Unsaved below the top bar or choose ••• › Save to name and save a script or deck. Choose ••• › Open to see Saved Notes, search by title or text, and swipe a note to rename or delete it.

Yes, on iPhone and iPad. Saving changed text adds a version. Once a note has more than one version, tap the clock at the top of the editor to compare changes and restore an earlier version. Restoring adds a new version, so the history stays available.

Open Saved Notes with ••• › Open, then choose ••• › Choose Notes Folder. CueCard keeps the latest copy of each saved note as a text file in that folder, outside the app. Choose the same folder after reinstalling to bring the notes back. Without a notes folder, removing the app deletes its notes. Version history stays inside the app and is not included in the folder.

Yes. On iPhone and iPad, choose a Notes Folder in Saved Notes. Changes to its text files come back into CueCard when it next syncs the folder, and new .txt or .md files become saved notes. The latest change wins if both copies have been edited.

Choose ••• › Import to open plain text files, including .txt and .md, or an RTF file. Imported content becomes a saved note; RTF formatting is removed. Files larger than 10 MB are not imported. Use ••• › Share to send a script or deck as text, with its cues included.

Yes. You can set the app to light, set it to dark, or let it follow whatever your phone is already set to.

Cue cards on your phone. Tap the mode name at the top left of the editor and choose Cards, write one short point per card, and tap Read Cards to swipe through them one at a time. It suits a speech, a toast or a class presentation, where you want reminders rather than a script. See Cards.

Yes. In Cards Settings, turn on Show on Lock Screen. When a deck is open, the card you are on, the timer and Back and Next sit on the Lock Screen, so you can lock the phone and keep going. The Lock Screen shows up to 120 characters of a card.

Yes, and it comes with the iPhone app. It plays, pauses and skips back ten seconds in the teleprompter, and shows your cards on your wrist in step with the iPhone. Keep a deck on the watch to read it without your iPhone. See CueCard on Apple Watch.

Yes, on an iPhone with an Action Button and iOS 18. In the Settings app, go to Action Button › Controls and pick Play or Pause under CueCard.

A hardware rig puts a mirror in front of your lens and costs real money to buy and carry. CueCard puts the script on the screen you are already holding. It is not identical — a beam-splitter rig puts your eyes dead centre on the lens — but for a phone shot filmed anywhere, at no cost, it gets you most of the way there.

Yes. CueCard for Mac and Windows keeps your speaker notes on your screen and out of your screen share on Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Paste your notes in to use it with any deck, or add the browser extension so notes from Google Slides follow your slides. See the desktop app.

Yes. CueCard is designed to be undetectable on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and similar apps: it is excluded from screen capture, so your speaker notes stay off the shared screen while your deck goes out normally. Run one practice call to confirm it behaves as you expect with your setup.

With Invisible to Screen Sharing turned on in Settings, the CueCard window is excluded from screen shares and screen recordings on Mac and Windows. The Invisible button in the toolbar controls the same setting. Try one practice share before your call to check your setup.

Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, Discord — anything that shares a screen or a window. The notes are hidden at the operating-system level, not per app, so it is not a list you have to be on.

macOS and Windows. Both builds are on the downloads section and on the GitHub releases page.

No. Type or paste your notes straight into CueCard and present from anything you like — PowerPoint, Keynote, a PDF, a browser, or nothing at all. Google Slides sync is one extra way to use CueCard, not something it needs to work.

Yes. CueCard runs alongside whatever you present from — it does not need to know what your deck is. Paste your notes in and present as usual.

Install the CueCard desktop app and browser extension. In CueCard, choose Google Slides and click Connect Google Slides, then authorize read-only access to your presentations with Google. Open your deck in the browser and present; the notes in CueCard follow the current slide. You can read them in the editor or press play to scroll them in the prompter.

Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

A cue is a reminder to yourself about how to say the next part, rather than another line to read. Write [cue slow down] or [cue pause here] in the middle of your notes and CueCard draws it in colour, so you take it in as a direction instead of reading it out. Cues are optional.

Yes. Click Set Timer and choose a duration. The prompter counts down, warns you in the last fifth of the time and shows when you run over. With no duration set, it counts up. Changing slides does not reset the timer. Set the duration in the app; timing tags in the script are no longer used.

Yes. Press play to open the prompter. In Settings, choose Scroll Speed in lines per minute, a Start Delay before scrolling begins, and Small, Medium or Large text. You can pause, go back ten seconds, restart or scroll by hand. Google Slides notes can scroll too.

Yes. Choose Save as New from the ••• menu to name a script, then open it again from Scripts in the sidebar. Save updates the current script. Import from File and Export to File let you move scripts as text files, with cues included.

Hold Control and Option on Mac, or Ctrl and Alt on Windows: C shows or hides CueCard, Space plays or pauses, 0 restarts, minus and equals change opacity, and the arrow keys move the window. See Settings › Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list, including saving scripts and moving a line in the prompter.

Yes. Turn Invisible to Screen Sharing off in Settings, or click the Invisible button in the toolbar. CueCard then appears in screen capture like any other window.

Yes. There is a slider in Settings that fades the CueCard window back over your deck, so it can be as faint or as solid as you want it, and there are keyboard shortcuts for it too. Settings is also where you switch between light and dark.

Yes. Put CueCard on whichever display you like — it stays out of the shared screen either way, so it does not matter which one you are sharing.

Yes. Anything that captures the screen — a webinar platform, a Loom, a QuickTime recording, OBS — gets your deck without the notes.

Yes. Your notes, scripts and any Google token (used for Google Slides sync) stay on your device and are not uploaded. See the privacy policy for the full details.

Yes. CueCard for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch is a teleprompter that sits on top of the camera, Instagram, TikTok or any other app while you record, and cue cards you can turn from the Lock Screen or your wrist. Android is still being built. See the phone app.

No. There is nothing to sign up for on either app, and your scripts and settings live on your device. The one exception is Google Slides sync on the desktop app, which asks you to sign in with Google so it can read the notes out of your deck. See the privacy policy for the details.

Yes. CueCard is completely free on mobile and on desktop, and open source. Read the code on GitHub — and a star is always welcome.

Yes, the code is on GitHub. An app that can see your script is one worth being able to read the source of.

Your notes are stored on your device and are not uploaded to CueCard. On iPhone and iPad, you can also keep note files in a folder you choose in Files. If you choose a cloud-backed folder, that provider handles its storage and sync. Version history stays inside the iPhone or iPad app. See the privacy policy for details.

Open an issue on GitHub, or email support@cuecard.dev. Both are read.