What song is in this video?Six ways to find out
The fastest way to find a song from a video is to let a music recognition app listen to it: Shazam, the Music Recognition button in the iPhone Control Center, or Google's Search a song. If that fails, the platform often tells you itself: TikTok and Instagram show the sound on the original post, and YouTube lists licensed music in the description.
When the music is too quiet, covered by talking, sped up or simply replaced, fall back on the lyrics, on the original upload, or on the people who identify songs for fun on Reddit.
1. Shazam, on the same phone or another one
Shazam is the quickest option and works with most commercially released music. You can use it in three ways:
- —iPhone Control Center. Add the Music Recognition control in Settings, then open Control Center and tap it while the video plays. It can identify audio playing in other apps on the same iPhone, so you do not need a second device.
- —Shazam app. Open it on a second phone or tablet and hold it near the speaker while the video plays. On Android, the app can also identify music playing in other apps on the same phone.
- —On a computer. Shazam is available for Mac, and on a laptop you can simply play the video and hold your phone near the speakers.
Play the part of the video where the music is loudest and nobody is talking. Ten seconds of clean music works far better than a minute buried under a voiceover.
2. Google: Search a song and hum to search
In the Google app on Android or iPhone, tap the microphone and then Search a song. Google listens to the music playing nearby. If the clip has no usable audio but you remember the tune, hum, whistle or sing it for 10 to 15 seconds and Google suggests likely matches.
Hum to search is useful when the song in the video is a remix, a cover or a sped-up version that Shazam cannot match, because it looks at the melody rather than the exact recording.
3. Let the platform tell you
Many videos already credit the music. You just need to look in the right place:
- —TikTok. Tap the sound name or the spinning record at the bottom of the video to open the sound page, which shows the track and every video that uses it. If it says original sound, the uploader used their own audio; open the sound page anyway, because the comments and the earliest videos often name the song.
- —Instagram Reels. The audio name appears under the username. Tap it to open the audio page.
- —YouTube. Open the description and scroll down. When YouTube has identified licensed music, a Music section lists the song, the artist and the album. Creators also often credit tracks in the description or a pinned comment.
- —Comments. Search the comments for song or name. Someone has usually asked already.
These credits only appear on the post where the sound was attached. A repost on another platform, or a downloaded copy, usually loses them, which is why the original upload matters.
4. Search the lyrics
If you can make out a line or two of lyrics, type them into Google in quotes, followed by the word lyrics. Pick the most unusual words you heard rather than a chorus like I love you, which matches thousands of songs.
- —Slow the video down if you can. YouTube and most video players let you set playback speed to 0.75x.
- —Try a few variations if you are unsure of a word. Misheard lyrics often still get close.
- —Lyric sites like Genius are indexed by Google, so a short exact phrase is often enough.
5. When the music was replaced or muted
Reposts often swap the music for something else or mute it to avoid copyright claims. In that case no app can identify the song from your copy, because it is not there. You need the original upload of the footage.
Search for other copies of the video using its picture rather than its sound: a screenshot in Google Lens, or the whole clip in Retrace, which finds other pages showing the same footage. Retrace does not recognise audio, but the original post it leads you to often still has the sound credit or the song in its audio. Then use Shazam or the sound page on that copy. For the method to tell the original from a repost, see who posted a video first.
If the clip is from a film or series, the song is often listed in its soundtrack credits once you know the title. Finding a movie from a clip covers that first step.
6. Ask the people who do this for fun
When the song is obscure, unreleased or a live version, apps often give up. Communities like r/NameThatSong and r/tipofmytongue on Reddit identify songs from short clips every day.
- 1.Upload the clip or link to the video, with a timestamp of where the music plays.
- 2.Say what you already tried and what Shazam suggested, if anything.
- 3.Add any detail you know: the genre, the language, where you heard it, roughly when the video was posted.
- 4.When someone solves it, mark the post as solved so it helps the next person.
If the link to the video might disappear, save the clip first. A post with only a dead link gets no answers.