Listen to Obsidian Publish
CastReader reads Obsidian Publish sites aloud with natural voices. [[Wiki-links]] read as plain words — square brackets skipped — so digital gardens flow like articles, not markup.
Cold-start problems in recommender systems
A new item has no ratings, a new user has no history, a new cluster has no neighbors. Handling cold-start well is what separates a system that launches gracefully from one that needs three months to become useful. The classic fallback is content-based similarity , but that only helps if you have rich item metadata. Another angle is to borrow signals from adjacent domains until direct behavior accrues.
Reads the note — [[wiki-links]] read as plain text, brackets skipped
How CastReader Works with Obsidian
Built for the wiki-style notes that Obsidian users actually publish
Wiki-Links Handled
🔊 Hears Content — Not Bracket Soup
Obsidian notes are full of [[internal links]] and #tags. Most TTS extensions read 'bracket bracket content vectors bracket bracket' — useless. CastReader's Obsidian extractor reads the visible link text as plain words, drops the brackets, and skips standalone hashtags.
Sidebar Noise Stripped
Reads the Note — Not the Graph View
Obsidian Publish sites surround every note with backlinks, linked mentions, tag cloud, and graph panels. CastReader reads only the note body. Sidebars are visible but silent.
Callouts and Code
Callouts Read, Code Announced
Obsidian's custom callouts (`> [!note]` blocks) get read with their label first — 'Note:', 'Warning:', 'Info:' — so structural context survives the conversion to audio. Fenced code blocks are announced and skipped just like on GitHub.
Works on Any Publish Site
Custom Domain or publish.obsidian.md
Whether a user publishes to their own domain or uses publish.obsidian.md/sitename, CastReader's extractor finds the note body. Works on public digital gardens, personal knowledge wikis, and company-hosted documentation sites built on Obsidian.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about listening to Obsidian sites with CastReader
Does Obsidian have a built-in read-aloud feature?
Obsidian the desktop app has community plugins that do TTS, but they require you to be inside the app. Obsidian Publish sites — the public web version of people's notes — have no read-aloud built in. CastReader fills that gap in your browser for free.
Does it work on the Obsidian desktop app itself?
No. Obsidian is an Electron desktop app, not a web page — browser extensions don't run there. CastReader works on web-based Obsidian content: Publish sites, shared note links, and any web viewer that renders Obsidian markdown.
How does it handle [[wiki-links]]?
CastReader reads the link text as plain words and strips the `[[ ]]` brackets. So `[[cold-start problem]]` is read as 'cold-start problem', not 'bracket bracket cold-start problem bracket bracket'. This alone makes Obsidian sites listenable.
Does it read Obsidian's ==highlights== and **bold** correctly?
Yes. Markdown emphasis (bold, italic, strikethrough, ==highlight==) is treated as formatting, not content. The underlying text is read at normal pace — emphasis markers are invisible in audio, as they should be.
Does it read Obsidian callouts (`> [!note]` blocks)?
Yes, with the label first. A `> [!warning]` block is read as 'Warning:' followed by the content. This preserves the structural meaning — you hear that this is a warning, then you hear what the warning is.
Does it work on third-party Obsidian Publish themes?
Yes. Obsidian Publish themes change visual styling but keep the same underlying note structure. CastReader's extractor identifies the note body regardless of CSS theme.
Is it free?
Completely free. No API key, no usage limits, no account required. Install the Chrome extension and start listening.
Also Try
Listen to Notion
Same block-based notes philosophy, read aloud
Listen to Readwise
Pair Readwise highlights with audio for review
Listen to Yuque
Chinese wiki/knowledge base read aloud
Listen to Confluence
Team documentation read aloud
Listen to Feishu
Feishu Docs knowledge-base read aloud
EPUB to Audio
Turn any EPUB (including Obsidian exports) into audio
Start Listening Now
Completely free. No signup. No limits. Install and start listening to Obsidian Publish sites.