Find the right sound in a folder of 170,000 without waiting on anything.
Slip Sound is a desktop sample manager for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Point it at a folder, it indexes every audio file, and search returns in under 0.2 seconds. Everything stays on your drive. Free, GPL-licensed, no account.
- Index 170k files
- ~2 min
- Search
- < 0.2 s
- Export
- WAV 16/24/32 · OGG
- Platforms
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- Price
- $0
- Network calls
- 0
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- 1Categories or your own folders, with live counts
- 2Search: 100 of 257 matches across 178,825 files
- 3Filter by channels, max duration, favorites
- 4Click a category chip to reassign it
- 5Drag across the waveform to select and loop a region
- 6Export only that region, or drag it into your DAW
- 7Add effects, slice it into many files, or make a seamless loop
01Features
Browse, audition, trim, add effects, slice, loop, export. The things you do fifty times an hour are one key or one drag.
- Instant search
- Every word matches on its own, across names, categories and folders. Filter by channels, duration, favorites, or category. Results update as you type.
- Right-click menu
- Every action for a sound or a whole selection in one place.
- Undo
- Category changes and favorites, even bulk ones, come back with Ctrl Z.
- Auto-categorize
- Files are tagged on index from their names and paths. Can be turned off in Settings.
- Folders view
- Browse the real folder tree instead of categories. Pick a folder and search inside it.
- Manual overrides
- Reassign or clear any category. Your changes survive reindexes.
- Waveform preview
- Click to seek, drag to select, loop the selection. Auto-play as you arrow through the list.
- Region export
- Export just the selected slice, or drag it straight out of the app. Drag-outs land in a persistent folder, so they never go offline in Resolve or Premiere.
- Effects
- Reverse, pitch, speed, fades, mono, volume, peak or LUFS normalize, with before/after waveforms. Drag or export the result; the original is never touched. Save settings as presets. Works on Slicer slices and loops too.
- Slicer
- Cut one file into many. Drag out slices, tap M while it plays, or auto-detect sounds between silences.
- Seamless loop
- Crossfade a region's tail over its head so it repeats with no click. A/B it against the raw loop.
- DAW drag & drop
- Drag one file or a whole selection into Reaper, Ableton, FL Studio, Godot, Unity.
- Batch exporter
- WAV at 16, 24 or 32-bit, or OGG Vorbis. Any sample rate. Numbered or lettered output names.
- Favorites
- Star sounds and filter down to just those.
- Sortable table
- Sort by name, category, duration, channels, rate, or size.
- Reveal in folder
- Jump to any file in your system file manager.
- Keyboard-driven
- Every action has a shortcut. Press ? in the app for the guide.
- Reopens where you left off
- Your last library loads on launch.
02Tools
The jobs a browser usually sends you to a DAW for.
03How it stores things
The index lives inside the folder it describes.
Every folder you open gets its own SQLite file at its root. Index once, and reopening is instant. Reindex only when you've added or changed files. There's no central catalog and no hidden app-data blob, so the index moves with the folder to another drive or machine.
04Shortcuts
- Play / pause
- Space
- Focus search
- Ctrl F
- Previous / next sound
- ↑ ↓
- Open folder
- Ctrl O
- Jump to top / bottom
- Home End
- Toggle sidebar
- Ctrl B
- Undo / redo
- Ctrl Z / Ctrl Shift Z
- Add to selection
- Ctrl Click
- Export selection / region
- Ctrl E
- Select range
- Shift Click
- Slice sound
- Ctrl K
- Make seamless loop
- Ctrl L
- Effects
- Ctrl P
- Toggle auto-play
- Alt A
- Select all matches
- Ctrl A
- Help guide
- ?
05MCP server
Optional. Lets Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code search, tag, and export your library.
Off by default; enable it in Settings. It binds to 127.0.0.1 only, mints a new bearer token each launch, and checks Origin/Host headers to block browser DNS-rebinding. Settings shows the URL and token ready to paste into an mcpServers block.
- search_sounds
- Filter by name, category, channels, duration, favorite
- list_uncategorized_sounds
- Page through untagged sounds for an agent to sort
- set_category / clear_category
- Tag or untag a sound
- export_sound
- Export, optionally trimmed, to WAV/OGG
- get_sound · get_categories
- Metadata and facet counts
- toggle_favorite
- Star or unstar
- open_library · reindex_library
- Switch folders, rescan for changes
- reveal_in_folder
- Open the file's location
06Download
Each release ships SHA256 checksums alongside the binaries.
# Linux sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS-linux.txt # macOS shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS-mac.txt # Windows — compare against SHA256SUMS-windows.txt certutil -hashfile slip-sound-Setup.exe SHA256
07Instead of
A free, local alternative to Soundly, BaseHead, Soundminer, Resonic, AudioFinder, Sononym, and ADSR Sample Manager.