Help and answers.

Get as close as you safely can, hold the phone steady, and record for a few seconds so the analyser has something to work with. Wind is the biggest enemy of a clean recording - try to shelter the microphone, and record again if a gust passes through.

When a recording is faint, brief, distant or unusual, ChirpOMatic gives you a shortlist of likely matches rather than one confident guess. Open each candidate, compare it against the reference sound, and make the final call yourself. A shortlist is a feature, not a failure - it is the app being honest about what is actually in the file.

Record it again. The app analyses whatever is loudest, so it may have caught a nearer bird, traffic or wind rather than your target. Check the confidence label (High, Moderate or Low), compare your recording against the reference sounds, and remember that distance and wind both reduce accuracy. If a species genuinely is not being recognised, let us know - it helps us improve the analyser.

It lets you compare your recording against a reference sound without broadcasting the call into the open. Bird-safe mode uses the phone's distance sensor, playing sounds only when the phone is held close - like taking a phone call. Playing a call back in the open pulls birds off territory, and in the breeding season off their nests. (Bird-safe mode is an iOS feature and is not available on Android.)

Yes, with Pro on iOS. You can import a sound file and run it through the analyser, as well as recording live - useful for difficult clips you want to check again.

There is no account, and your saved recordings and their location stay in your own app library - you choose whether to export or share them. If online analysis is used, the recording is sent only for identification. The app collects only anonymous diagnostic data to help fix crashes, and nothing that identifies you. Full details are on the privacy page.

There are separate editions for Europe, North America, the Caribbean and Australia. Each carries its own species list, including native and endemic birds, so a smaller local dataset means fewer wrong answers from the other side of the world. Choose the edition for where you are birding.

iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch on iOS, and Android phones and tablets via Google Play. On Apple devices you will need iOS or iPadOS 15 or later. The app is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish.

Your access carries over. Customers from before the move to a subscription keep the features they already had - nothing changes for you.

Subscriptions are managed in your App Store or Google Play account, not inside the app, so you cancel or change a plan there. If you have moved to a new device, use "Restore purchases" in the app settings to bring your Pro access across.