macOS · 1 app · v1.12

Wild Noise

A Mac app that listens to nearby sound and names the bird, insect, or animal it most likely came from. Recording and identification both run on your Mac.

Ask to be told at launch Privacy for Wild Noise

Coming to the Mac App Store. It is finished and in testing, but there is no download yet.

14,795species the model can name
100%of the listening done on your Mac
13.4+macOS, Apple silicon and Intel
0accounts, ads, or trackers

How it works

Record ten seconds. Read what answered.

Choose whether you are listening for birds, insects, animals, or all three. Record once, or leave it running in the background from the menu bar. Wild Noise ranks what it heard, shows you where in the recording each match sits, and lets you play that exact moment back.

Wild Noise, Listen: Pick whether you are listening for birds, insects, animals, or all three, then record once or leave it running. — **Listen**Pick whether you are listening for birds, insects, animals, or all three, then record once or leave it running.

Wild Noise, Recording: The waveform draws live while the microphone is open, at full resolution. — **Recording**The waveform draws live while the microphone is open, at full resolution.

Wild Noise, Matches: Each result carries a score, a plain Likely or Weak label, the seconds it was heard in, and a link to Wikipedia. — **Matches**Each result carries a score, a plain Likely or Weak label, the seconds it was heard in, and a link to Wikipedia.

Wild Noise, Most heard: A running count of which species turn up most often, and what was found today. — **Most heard**A running count of which species turn up most often, and what was found today.

Wild Noise, Wild Heard: How much of the catalogue you have found so far, counted separately for birds, insects, and animals. — **Wild Heard**How much of the catalogue you have found so far, counted separately for birds, insects, and animals.

Wild Noise, Settings: Ten languages, light or dark to match macOS, and eight owls to pick from. — **Settings**Ten languages, light or dark to match macOS, and eight owls to pick from.

Two modes

Simple until you want more.

Simple Mode

What the app opens in. Listening, matches, photos, reference sounds, and the journal. Nothing else on screen.

Plain Likely, Possible, and Weak labels instead of raw scores
Wikipedia photos and articles in your language
Song examples from Wikimedia Commons, with attribution
Menu-bar monitoring with one notification per species per day

Advanced Mode

One switch in Settings. Professional tools stay collapsed until you open them, and your discoveries are untouched either way.

Drag in single files or run a whole folder as a batch
Clickable spectrogram with zoom, loop playback, and WAV export
Raw scores, exact timestamps, and local inference timing
Journal search, filters, date ranges, and CSV or JSON export
Separate thresholds for birds, insects, and animals in 5% steps

What stays on your Mac

Microphone audio, the Perch model, and every identification run locally. Imported files, batch folders, spectrograms, and exports are processed on the machine too. Recordings are only kept if you turn Keep recordings on.

The one exception is optional: if you leave photos and song examples enabled, Wild Noise asks Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons for a species by its scientific name. That sends the name, never your audio. You can turn it off in Settings.

Requirements

macOS 13.4 or later
Apple silicon or Intel, since the app ships universal
Around 470 MB, because the model is bundled and there is no first-launch download
A microphone, ideally not the one next to your Mac's fan

A word on accuracy

The score compares the candidates it is showing you; it is not proof of an identification. Wild Noise filters rumble and steady fan-like noise before it listens, but a laptop fan can still read as wildlife to a sensitive model. Treat a match as a good lead, not a record.

Identification uses Google's Perch 2.0 bioacoustic model. Full policy: Wild Noise privacy.