Have you ever been out and about, heard a song playing, and found yourself wanting to know the name of the song and the artist? Or perhaps you’re at a party and a song comes on that you love, but you don’t know how to ask for the song’s name without looking like a music novice. In either case, you might think that you need to download a special app to recognize the song for you. However, did you know that there are actually ways to recognize songs on your iPhone or Android device without using any apps at all? Here are a few different methods you can try:

Use Siri or Google Assistant

If you have an iPhone or an Android device, you can simply ask Siri or Google Assistant to identify the song for you. All you need to do is hold down the home button or say “Hey Siri” (on iPhone) or “Ok Google” (on Android) to activate the virtual assistant, and then say “What song is this?” or “Identify this song.” The assistant will listen to the song for a few seconds and then tell you the name of the song and the artist.

Use Shazam on iPhone & iPad

With Music Recognition on iPhone or iPad, you can identify songs right from Control Center. To add Music Recognition to Control Center, go to Settings > Control Center, then tap the Add button (+) next to Music Recognition (requires iOS or iPad OS 14.2 or later).

To identify songs, open Control Center, then tap the Shazam logo button. Shazam then identifies songs playing on your device even when you’re using headphones.

To find songs you’ve identified, touch and hold the Shazam button in Control Center to open your History View. Tap a song to open it in Shazam.

Tip: If you’ve synced Music Recognition in Control Center with the Shazam app, songs you’ve identified appear in My Music in the Shazam app and are also backed up to iCloud.

Use Now Playing history on Android

To enable this feature, you need a Google Pixel 3/3a and later. Open your phone’s Settings app, tap Sound & vibration, and then Now Playing then turn on “Identify songs playing nearby.” Now, whenever you hear a song playing nearby this feature will automatically identify those songs for you.

To access identified songs list, return to the Now Playing section and tap Now Playing history, here you will see all identified songs list. To access this history quickly, when you’re in the Now Playing history, tap the three dots menu in the right corner, there you will see two suggestions: Remove all & Add to Home Screen, for quick access, simply choose: “Add to Home Screen,” this will add a shortcut to your home screen for quick access songs list.

Use a search engine

If none of the above methods work, you can always try using a search engine like Google to try and identify the song. Simply go to Google and type in a few lyrics from the song (enclose the lyrics in quotation marks to get more accurate results). You can also try adding the word “lyrics” to your search to narrow down the results. If the song is popular, you may be able to find the name of the song and the artist this way.

So, there are several ways you can recognize songs on your iPhone or Android device without using any apps. Whether you use Siri or Google Assistant, Shazam, Now Playing history on Android, or a search engine, you should be able to find out the name of the song and the artist. So next time you’re wondering what song is playing, give one of these methods a try!