Local-first · zero backend
Annotate audio & video, entirely in your browser
Cockatiel segments speech with WebAssembly VAD, lets you edit on the waveform, and exports to ELAN, SRT, TextGrid, CSV, and text. Your media never leaves your device.
No sign-up, no upload. Free and open source.
Privacy first, by design
All processing — decoding, segmentation, editing, and export — runs locally in your browser. There is no backend that sees your recordings. When you load audio from a catalogue URL it streams from the source server straight to your browser; Cockatiel never proxies the bytes. That means sensitive fieldwork and unpublished material stay on your machine.
Everything you need to transcribe
Automatic segmentation
Voice-activity detection via Silero VAD (WebAssembly), with an energy-based fallback. Long recordings are split into utterances in seconds.
Waveform editor
Drag, resize, split, merge, and delete segments directly on the waveform. The audio and your edits stay perfectly in sync.
Speaker assignment
Assign segments to speakers with configurable names and colours, so multi-speaker recordings stay legible.
Looping playback
Click a region to loop it while you transcribe. Keep your hands on the keyboard and your eyes on the text.
Keyboard-driven
Split (S), delete, merge (M), navigate ([ / ]), skip (← / →) and more. Press ? at any time to see every shortcut.
Audio & video
Drop an audio or video file, paste an https URL, or deep-link with ?audio= — sessions are saved against the source so links restore instantly.
Multi-format export
Export to EAF (ELAN), SRT, TextGrid (Praat), CSV, and plain text — ready for the tools your workflow already uses.
Catalog integration
Browse and load items straight from an RO-Crate catalog (PARADISEC, LDaCA, or your own), and import existing ELAN transcripts.
Pick up where you left off
Every recording you open becomes a saved session, stored in your browser. Drop a file, browse a catalogue, or load from a URL — then come back later and your transcript, speakers, and progress are right where you left them.
Try it now →
Ready to start?
Open Cockatiel and drop a file — nothing to install, nothing to sign up for. Want to run it on your own infrastructure? It ships as a single container.