Earworm review
A free iOS app for finding songs from melodies stuck in your head.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Earworm is a free music-identification app for people who remember a melody but not the song title. Instead of requiring a recording of the original track, it accepts humming, singing, or whistling and returns a ranked shortlist of likely matches. The app supports iPhone and Apple Watch, saves identified songs in a personal Library, and provides previews before opening a match in Apple Music or Spotify. It is designed for quick melody-based searches rather than broader music discovery or lyric lookup.
Its standout feature is the focus on songs stuck in your head. The matching process can work from a user-created melody, while Apple Watch support adds another way to start an identification. A personal Library preserves previous results, and ranked matches help users compare likely answers instead of receiving only one result. Links to Apple Music and Spotify make the next step clear when a match is found. Earworm also offers optional consent for using recordings to improve matching, while short recordings are sent to matching services for processing.
Access is currently through a free TestFlight beta, and an account is required. Earworm is available on iOS, with Apple Watch support, but it does not provide offline identification or lyrics. People who want a focused tool for humming, singing, or whistling a melody should consider it, particularly if they use Apple Music or Spotify. Those who need Android support, offline searches, or lyric results should choose a different music-identification app. The narrow focus is its main strength, but it also defines the product’s limits.
Earworm pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Identifies melodies from humming, singing, or whistling
- Ranks likely matches and includes song previews
- Links matches to Apple Music and Spotify
- Where it doesn't
- Currently distributed as a TestFlight beta
- Requires an account to use the service
- Does not provide lyrics or offline identification
Earworm fact sheet, pricing and score →
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