The mushaf, as printed
Every page laid out like the printed mushaf: the 15-line Madani mushaf in Uthmani script, drawn with the King Fahd Complex’s own page fonts, and the 15-line IndoPak mushaf. Switch script and stay on the same ayah.
Install
Get Surabar
Free and open source. For macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
With Homebrew Recommended
Paste it into Terminal. Surabar updates itself, and brew upgrade surabar works too.
or
Download the appLatest release (.dmg)
Open it and drag Surabar into Applications.
Opening it the first time
Surabar isn’t signed with an Apple Developer certificate yet, so macOS asks before the first launch. You only do this once.
- 1Open Surabar. macOS says it could not verify it. Click Done.
- 2Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll down.
- 3Click Open Anyway next to Surabar, then confirm. It now lives in your menu bar: press ⌃⌥Q to open it.
Prefer Terminal?
Run this once, then open Surabar normally:
Features
Quiet, beautiful, always one click away
Surabar lives in your menu bar. Click its icon or press a shortcut, and the mushaf is open at the page you left, ready to read or to recite. Close it and it’s gone, while the recitation carries on.
Recitation that follows along
19 reciters, from complete surah recordings, so every ayah flows into the next as it was recited. The page turns and the ayah lights up as it plays. Play, pause and skip with your keyboard’s media keys.
Loops for memorising
Repeat an ayah, a page, a surah or any range of ayahs, as many times as you like, with a pause between repeats.
The Manzil, every day
Read and recite the Manzil in full, tick it off each day, keep your streak, and get a gentle reminder in the morning or evening.
Bookmarks, highlights and notes
Mark any ayah, highlight it in a color, or write a note beside it. Everything is kept by surah and ayah, so it follows you between scripts, and you can back it up to a file.
Translations in 56 languages
The meaning of each ayah under the page, from QuranEnc.com: Saheeh International is included, and 75 more translations are a click away, kept up to date.
Offline when you need it
The whole mushaf is on your Mac. Recitations you play are saved as you listen, and you can download whole surahs or juz.
Liquid Glass
Built for macOS 26 Tahoe’s Liquid Glass, with a frosted style on macOS 14 and 15, in light, sepia and dark.
Light on your Mac
About a 14 MB download, and around 22 MB of memory while it waits in the menu bar. It uses almost no CPU, even while reciting.
Reciters
Nineteen voices
Complete surah recordings from mp3quran.net, with the time of every ayah. Listen to any of them right here.
Privacy
Your reading stays on your Mac
- No account. Nothing to sign up for.
- No tracking. The app has no analytics of any kind.
- Online only when needed. Surabar connects to stream recitations and their ayah timings, to download the Uthmani page fonts once, to fetch translations you choose, and about once a day to see whether a newer Surabar is out (you can turn that off). Nothing about you is sent.
- Signed updates. An update is installed only if its signature matches the key built into Surabar.
- Permissions only when used. Notifications are asked for only if you turn on the Manzil reminders.
- Your notes are yours. Bookmarks, highlights and notes stay on your Mac, and you can export them to a file any time.
And this website?
It counts page views with Cloudflare Web Analytics, without cookies, and keeps a daily count of clicks on Download and the Homebrew command, with nothing about you. The demo above keeps your settings and bookmarks in this browser only. Recitations stream from mp3quran.net and the page fonts load from the Quranic Universal Library, as they do in the app.
Credits
Built on the work of others
Surabar shows the Quran, its recitation and its translation from these sources, unchanged.
Quranic Universal Library
By Tarteel. The Quran text and word data, the 15-line mushaf layouts, and the surah, juz and hizb metadata.
qul.tarteel.aiKing Fahd Glorious Quran Printing Complex
The QCF V2 page fonts, from the calligraphy of Uthman Taha, and the KFGQPC HAFS Uthmanic Script font.
qurancomplex.gov.saQuranWBW
The AlQuran IndoPak font, by Ayman Siddiqui, used for the IndoPak pages.
quranwbw.comQuranEnc.com
Translations of the meanings of the Quran, shown unmodified with each publisher’s credit. Saheeh International is published by Noor International Center.
quranenc.commp3quran.net
The recitations, by each reciter named in the player, and the time of every ayah.
mp3quran.netOpen-source libraries
GRDB.swift by Gwendal Roué, KeyboardShortcuts by Sindre Sorhus, and Sparkle, all MIT licensed. This site uses Lenis for smooth scrolling.
All credits and licencesFAQ
Questions
What do I need?
A Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Apple Silicon and Intel are both supported.
Which mushaf does it show?
Two, and you can switch between them at any time: the 15-line Madani mushaf (604 pages, the King Fahd Complex print) in Uthmani script, and the 15-line Qudratullah IndoPak mushaf (610 pages). The demo here has a few surahs; the app has every page.
Does it work offline?
Reading does: every page is on your Mac. The Uthmani page fonts download once, the first time. Recitations stream, are saved as you listen, and can be downloaded by surah or juz for offline listening.
Is it really free?
Yes. Surabar is open source under the MIT license, with no ads, no subscriptions and no in-app purchases.
Why does macOS warn me when I open it?
Apple asks developers to sign and notarize apps with a paid Developer account, which Surabar doesn’t have yet. The code is public on GitHub. Follow the three steps above once and macOS remembers your choice.
How do I update it?
Surabar checks for updates itself about once a day and installs them with one click (Settings → General → Updates). With Homebrew, brew upgrade surabar works too.
How do I uninstall it?
With Homebrew, run brew uninstall --zap surabar. --zap also deletes your bookmarks, notes, settings and saved recitations, so export a backup first if you want them. Otherwise, quit Surabar from its menu bar icon and drag it from Applications to the Trash.
How do I open it?
Click its icon in the menu bar, or press ⌃⌥Q from any app (you can change the shortcut in Settings → General). Right-click the icon for its menu. You can also detach the reader into its own window.
Can I help or suggest something?
Please do. Open an issue or a pull request on GitHub.