Offline music identification
A song is playing where there is no signal, and the moment is about to pass. Snag records the audio the instant you tap, even offline, then identifies it with Apple’s ShazamKit once you are back online. Capture now, identify later.
What is Snag?
A free music identification app for iPhone, powered by Apple’s ShazamKit. It records a short audio clip with every attempt, so you never lose a song, even with no signal.
The dead-zone problem
You are in a basement club, a festival field, a moving subway car, or a plane at altitude. A track comes on that you have to know the name of. You pull out your phone, and there is no signal. By the time you surface somewhere with bars, the song is long gone and so is your chance to find it.
A normal one-shot recognizer needs the internet at the exact moment it listens. No connection means no answer, and nothing to show for the attempt. The places where you hear the most new music, loud rooms with thick walls and packed crowds, are exactly the places with the least signal.
How offline capture works in Snag
Snag splits the job in two: capture, then recognition. Only the second half needs a connection.
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Tap to capture, online or not
The instant you tap, Snag starts recording and saves a short audio clip to your device. This happens whether or not you have a connection, so the moment is preserved immediately.
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The clip waits in your history
With no signal, recognition cannot run yet, so the saved recording sits in your history, ready. Nothing is lost. You can keep snagging other songs in the same dead zone.
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Identify when you are back online
Once you reconnect, run the identification against the stored audio. Apple’s ShazamKit recognizes the track and you see the title and artist, with a link to Apple Music.
Capture now, identify later
To be clear about what happens offline: Snag saves the audio with no connection, but the recognition itself uses Apple’s ShazamKit, which needs the internet. Snag does not recognize songs on the device with no connection ever. What it does instead is keep the recording so the identification can run the moment you are back online, against the exact audio you captured.
That is the difference that matters. A failed or offline attempt leaves you with a real recording you can act on, instead of nothing at all.
Where it shines
Snag is built for the loud, no-signal venues where new music lives and reception dies: clubs, festivals, warehouse parties, basements, the subway, and planes. These are the rooms a one-shot recognizer struggles in, and the rooms where saving the audio first pays off most.
Capture the track on the dance floor with no bars, then identify it on the walk home. The song you heard at 2 a.m. in a dead zone is still waiting for you when you reconnect.
Retry Analysis
Because Snag keeps the actual recording, it can take more than one look at it. Retry Analysis re-checks your saved audio with Apple’s ShazamKit across several different windows of the clip, slicing it different ways to give the catalog more than one chance at the same moment.
It uses the same ShazamKit catalog as a single live tap, not a different engine, but giving it multiple passes genuinely catches some songs the first attempt missed. That is especially useful for a clip captured offline in a noisy room, where one quick listen can fall short.
Snag uses Apple’s ShazamKit, so when you are offline it cannot recognize a song until you reconnect. What it can do offline is record the audio instantly, so the moment is saved and ready to identify the second you are back online.
Your browsable history
Every snag, identified or not, lands in a history you can browse, organized by date. You can scroll back through it any time, add the place where you heard a song, and write your own notes, turning a string of dead-zone captures into a real music diary.
Your snags are stored privately on your iPhone and your own iCloud account, with no account to create and nothing sold or used for advertising. Learn more about how Snag works or on the privacy page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I identify a song without internet?
You can capture the song without internet, and identify it once you are back online. Snag records the audio the instant you tap, with no signal required. The recognition step uses Apple’s ShazamKit, which needs a connection, so Snag holds the clip and runs the identification when you reconnect. The moment is saved either way, so a song you hear in a dead zone is never lost.
How does Snag work offline?
Snag records first, then identifies. The moment you tap, it saves a short audio clip to your device, whether or not you have a connection. Recognition with Apple’s ShazamKit happens when you are back online, against that saved recording. This capture now, identify later flow is the whole point: you keep the audio offline, and the song name arrives once you reconnect.
Will Snag identify a song on a plane or subway with no service?
Snag will record the song on a plane or subway with no service, and identify it later. The recording is saved to your device the moment you tap, so the audio is captured even with no signal. Apple’s ShazamKit needs a connection to recognize the track, so the song name appears once you are back online and run the identification against the saved clip.
What happens to my recording when I get back online?
Open the saved snag from your history and run the identification against the stored audio. Because Snag kept the actual recording, you can retry it as many times as you like once you reconnect. Snag’s Retry Analysis can also re-check the clip across several windows of the audio using Apple’s ShazamKit, which sometimes catches a song a single tap missed.
Is Snag free?
Yes. Snag is free on iPhone, with no account to create. Your recordings are stored privately on your iPhone, and if you turn on iCloud backup they also sync to your own iCloud account. They are never sold or used for advertising.
Never lose a song to a dead zone.
Free on iPhone. Snag captures the audio the moment you tap, even offline, so the next song you hear with no signal is one you can always identify later.
