Readout 3.6.0

Readout 3.6 keeps better track of what you have already seen, sends code references to your editor at the right line, opens large documents faster, and typesets tables, Chinese emphasis and code more carefully.

New

• Where the changes are: outline headings show a dot when their section has unread changes, and so does the document's tab.
• Code references open in your editor at the line: links such as src/app.ts#L42, src/app.ts#L42-L50 or src/app.ts:42 open in the editor chosen in Settings, at that line. ⌘E opens the document at the line you are reading.
• Plans find their code: plans Claude Code writes in ~/.claude/plans mention files relative to the project. When the plan was opened by the readout --hook agent hook, Readout now remembers the project folder and those references resolve.
• One line per field: lines such as Status: Draft and Date: 2026-10-15 written one under another now show one per line instead of running together.
• View ▸ Show What Changed shows the word changes of the edited blocks in view (also D). Find ▸ Use Selection for Find and File ▸ Close All (⌥⌘W) are new too.
• Help opens the keyboard guide inside Readout, offline.
• Command line: readout FOLDER opens the newest Markdown file in the folder, readout plan.md#section opens at a section (with -b too), and readout --version prints the version.

Improved

Following an agent

• With Readout beside your terminal, visible but not the active window, changes you watch arrive at the end of the document count as read.
• A change you jump to with N counts as read, even when you skim quickly. N beeps when it wraps back to the first change.
• An agent writing a long paragraph no longer leaves stray "removed" marks behind.
• When an agent rewrites a file, the notice waits until you come back to the window, and you land at your section if it still exists, otherwise at the top.
• Changes you have read stay read after quitting and reopening.
• Copied text is clean: formulas become $…$, tasks [ ]/[x], footnotes [^1], and comparison panels and popups are left out.
• Hovering over a link shows where it goes.
• A remote image you loaded stays loaded when its block changes. After loading one, the other images from that site can be loaded with one click.
• Removed text is shown as it was written, including task boxes and list numbers.

Reading

• Chinese and Japanese emphasis dots no longer push lines apart and never sit under punctuation. Long emphasised passages use a slightly heavier weight instead.
• Short table cells and identifiers no longer wrap while there is room, long paths in tables break after slashes, number columns stay right-aligned when some cells say N/A or —, and code in tables is a little larger.
• In wide windows, code blocks and tables that would otherwise scroll sideways can extend past the text column.
• Code inside note boxes has a visible background, directory trees drawn in code blocks have unbroken lines, and terminal transcripts (console) are highlighted as sessions without stray colour codes.
• Long web addresses break at slashes, an image on its own no longer leaves extra space below it, and superscripts no longer spread lines apart.
• The empty-file and caught-up messages are easier to read.

Speed

• Large documents open about twice as fast, and live updates to them cost less.
• The first code block in a language highlights several times faster.
• Diagrams load in the background, and a diagram an agent is still writing redraws once it settles instead of on every keystroke.

On the Mac

• The document starts right below the toolbar, the sidebar is a single surface, and the search field is the intended size.
• The next-change button uses your accent colour instead of red.
• Files that agents open in the background no longer fill Open Recent.
• Quick Look uses the same text size as the app and follows light and dark mode while open.
• Finder treats .mdown, .mkd and similar files as Markdown, and file kinds and the Quick Look extension are shown in Chinese on Chinese systems.
• If a file cannot be read, the window says so instead of staying blank, and macOS explains why Readout asks for access to Documents, Desktop or Downloads.
• Settings and the welcome window never join your document tabs, and clicking the Dock icon with only minimised windows brings them back.
• VoiceOver reads outline task progress in words. In Settings, a folder that does not exist yet shows a folder icon, and ⌫ removes the selected folder.
• The update alert shows the release notes cleanly.

Fixed

• Code inside a quote or a list item (> ```bash, 1. ```bash) is shown exactly as written; $NAME and [^1]: lines in it were changed.
• Replacing the whole of a very large document no longer stalls for seconds.
• Front matter is recognised with trailing spaces after ---, and folded descriptions and lists in it are no longer lost.
• Lists inside footnotes are spaced correctly.
• Several cases where a live update showed a code block or list differently from reopening the file.

Privacy

• Remote images still load only when you click. Loading all images from a site applies only to the site of the image you clicked.