Local AI search to find SFX and music by describing it
Curlo is a privacy-first macOS app for searching, previewing, and organizing large sound libraries. Find SFX or music by describing what you want to hear, search for similar sounds, edit metadata & UCS, manage tags, and keep everything fully local on your Mac.
I’m the maker of Curlo, and also a part-time audiobook post-production editor.
Curlo started from a problem I kept running into: sometimes you know what you want to hear, but you do not know the filename.
So I built Curlo — a native macOS app that lets you search your local sound library by describing what you hear.
For example: - heavy rain on a tin roof - footsteps on gravel - gentle piano melody - short metallic hit - dark cinematic drone
Curlo analyzes the audio content locally on your Mac, then lets you find sounds by natural language. The search does not need the file to already be named or tagged perfectly. Your audio files and search queries stay on-device.
Key features:
- Semantic search for local audio files (Fully offline) - Metadata search with commands like /filename, /tag, /ucs, and /format - Drag clips into DAWs and apps like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Reaper, Premiere Pro, and other tools - Similar audio search from a file or selected region - AI auto-tagging and UCS category support - Metadata reading, editing, and writing - Localhost API for custom workflows
I’d love feedback from sound designers, video editors, audiobook/podcast editors, music producers, and anyone managing a large local audio library.
Thanks for checking it out!
About Curlo on Product Hunt
“Local AI search to find SFX and music by describing it”
Curlo launched on Product Hunt on May 27th, 2026 and earned 68 upvotes and 5 comments, placing #28 on the daily leaderboard. Curlo is a privacy-first macOS app for searching, previewing, and organizing large sound libraries. Find SFX or music by describing what you want to hear, search for similar sounds, edit metadata & UCS, manage tags, and keep everything fully local on your Mac.
On the analytics side, Curlo competes within Productivity, Artificial Intelligence and Audio — topics that collectively have 1.1M followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Curlo performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Curlo?
Curlo was hunted by Ahrisy. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Curlo including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
Ahrisy
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I’m the maker of Curlo, and also a part-time audiobook post-production editor.
Curlo started from a problem I kept running into: sometimes you know what you want to hear, but you do not know the filename.
So I built Curlo — a native macOS app that lets you search your local sound library by describing what you hear.
For example:
- heavy rain on a tin roof
- footsteps on gravel
- gentle piano melody
- short metallic hit
- dark cinematic drone
Curlo analyzes the audio content locally on your Mac, then lets you find sounds by natural language. The search does not need the file to already be named or tagged perfectly. Your audio files and search queries stay on-device.
Key features:
- Semantic search for local audio files (Fully offline)
- Metadata search with commands like /filename, /tag, /ucs, and /format
- Drag clips into DAWs and apps like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Reaper, Premiere Pro, and other tools
- Similar audio search from a file or selected region
- AI auto-tagging and UCS category support
- Metadata reading, editing, and writing
- Localhost API for custom workflows
I’d love feedback from sound designers, video editors, audiobook/podcast editors, music producers, and anyone managing a large local audio library.
Thanks for checking it out!