orca(1)

💖 orca — a scriptable screen reader 💖

okay bestie, listen up, this is orca(1), section 1 of the general commands manual, and she is ICONIC. she's a screen reader, she's scriptable, she's here to make your desktop talk to you (literally), and honestly? we're obsessed. 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

orca [option...]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. drop in some options, or don't, she's flexible like that. 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so orca is a screen reader for people with visual impairments, and what she does is give you alternative access to the desktop by using speech synthesis and braille. two channels of accessibility, zero gatekeeping. 👑

and the way she works?? she talks to applications and toolkits that support the Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI), which is the primary assistive technology infrastructure for Linux. periodt.

so which apps and toolkits support AT-SPI, you ask? bestie, let me list them for you, no cap:

• the GNOME GTK toolkit
• the Java platform's Swing toolkit
• LibreOffice
• Gecko
• WebKitGTK
• Qt

a whole roster. she's got range. 🌈

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💜 OPTIONS 💜

• -h, --help — shows you the help message and then dips. exit stage left. 🎀
• -v, --version — prints the version info and bounces. exit, bye.
• -r, --replace — replaces a currently running orca process. here's the tea: by default, if orca peeps an existing orca process for the same session, she will not start a new one. this option is the "move over, i'm the main character now" button — it kills and cleans up after any existing orca process and then starts a fresh new orca in its place. 🔥
• -s, --setup — sets up your user preferences using the GUI. and if orca is already running? the preferences dialog just pops up in that running instance. no new instance needed, queen behavior.
• -l, --list-apps — prints the known running applications. this one is mainly a debugging tool, used to check whether orca can actually talk to the accessibility infrastructure. ⚠️ important note: if orca is already running, this will not kill the other orca process. it'll just list the currently running applications — and heads up, you'll see orca listed twice: once for the existing orca and once for this instance. that's not a glitch, that's just the truth. 💀
• -p, --profile NAME — loads the specified user profile.
• --speech-system NAME — uses the specified speech system.
• --debug — turns on debug output for orca and sends all that output to a file named like debug-YYYY-MM-DD-HH:MM:SS.out in the current directory. the YYYY-MM-DD-HH:MM:SS part gets swapped out for the current date and time. timestamps, slay. 🍓
• --debug-file FILE — turns on debug output for orca and sends all of it to the given FILE instead.
• --approve-extension FILENAME — approves a user extension for loading. heads up tho: the extension file must already exist in ~/.local/share/orca/extensions/.
• --revoke-extension FILENAME — revokes approval for a user extension. (the consequences of your own actions, but make it accessibility tooling 🙈)

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🎀 KEYBOARD SETTINGS 🎀

okay so orca gives you two keyboard modes: Desktop and Laptop keyboard layout. and orca uses the desktop's default keyboard shortcuts to navigate and interact with applications. ✨

💡 pro tip from me to you: use learn mode to discover all the available commands. it's giving cheat sheet, it's giving discovery. iykyk.

now, the following key bindings all use the Orca_Modifier key — which is Insert in the desktop keyboard layout and Caps_Lock in the laptop keyboard layout. no cap.

• Orca_Modifier+H — enter learn mode. press Escape to exit. 🌟
• Orca_Modifier+Space — open the preferences dialog.
• Orca_Modifier+Ctrl+Space — open the preferences dialog for the current application. per-app settings bestie, we love a bespoke experience. 💖

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🦋 FILES 🦋

• ~/.local/share/orca/ — user preferences directory. 🏠
• ~/.local/share/orca/extensions/ — user extensions directory.
• ~/.local/share/orca/orca-customizations.py — user customizations configuration file (deprecated). ⚠️ yeah, she's deprecated, we don't really use her like that anymore, but she's still listed so you know she exists.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Orca originated as a community effort led by the Sun Microsystems Inc. Accessibility Program Office, and with contributions from many community members. communal effort, community contributions, that's the origin story. the way that this was built by a whole village... 💜

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

• Orca repository and issue tracker — https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca

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and that's the page bestie!! 🌈 this one came from GNOME, last touched 19 February 2026, and she lives at orca(1). go forth, run orca --help, enter learn mode, and slay. periodt. 💅✨🎀