Review Insights · App Store
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
Cornell University · 107,688 ratings · ★ 4.9
4.9
★★★★★
107,688 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 18 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"recordings"
9 negative reviews mention this · 50% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
2
"save"
7 negative reviews mention this · 39% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
3
"update"
7 negative reviews mention this · 39% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Update looses data. The most recent update really screwed things up. When you stop recording, if you don’t immediately wait for the transcript to be done and then hit save which you can’t do until it gets done moving it then you hit save and wait a long time b…" - ckayak
4
"recording"
6 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
5
"bird"
6 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Update looses data. The most recent update really screwed things up. When you stop recording, if you don’t immediately wait for the transcript to be done and then hit save which you can’t do until it gets done moving it then you hit save and wait a long time b…" - ckayak
6
"button"
6 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Update looses data. The most recent update really screwed things up. When you stop recording, if you don’t immediately wait for the transcript to be done and then hit save which you can’t do until it gets done moving it then you hit save and wait a long time b…" - ckayak
7
"lost"
5 negative reviews mention this · 28% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
8
"longer"
4 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
9
"merlin"
4 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "3.8.4 Breaks Sound ID. I was hiking through the old-growth beech trees of the Sonian Forest in a symphony of birdsong, blissfully unaware of the fact that the Merlin dev team had changed the app to only autosave recordings if Location Services had fixed a locatio…" - Marriott Time-waster
10
"location"
4 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "3.8.4 Breaks Sound ID. I was hiking through the old-growth beech trees of the Sonian Forest in a symphony of birdsong, blissfully unaware of the fact that the Merlin dev team had changed the app to only autosave recordings if Location Services had fixed a locatio…" - Marriott Time-waster
11
"change"
3 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Recording no longer save. Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change." - njhvhg
12
"recent"
3 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Update looses data. The most recent update really screwed things up. When you stop recording, if you don’t immediately wait for the transcript to be done and then hit save which you can’t do until it gets done moving it then you hit save and wait a long time b…" - ckayak
📋 All 18 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Update looses data
The most recent update really screwed things up. When you stop recording, if you don’t immediately wait for the transcript to be done and then hit save which you can’t do until it gets done moving it then you hit save and wait a long time but if you don’t do that right away, you lose your data cause if soon as you go to another app or the lock screen goes on you’ve lost it if you haven’t had it saved so we’re in the past it saved it automatically. I’m not the only one we were on a four hour bird walk the other day and even the leader didn’t realize that the update screwed you over and we lost four hours worth of bird data. You could always delete the recordings so I don’t see any point in changing it to having to purposely save it.
Reduced to one star since I lost another 90 minutes of recording when the device switched to another app after stopping the recording but while it was doing something before the save button became active. And since the developers don’t seem to want to address the glaring defect of removing autosave, it wasn’t there when switched back to app. As numerous others have pointed out this is a serious defect causing lose of much data.
Reduced to one star since I lost another 90 minutes of recording when the device switched to another app after stopping the recording but while it was doing something before the save button became active. And since the developers don’t seem to want to address the glaring defect of removing autosave, it wasn’t there when switched back to app. As numerous others have pointed out this is a serious defect causing lose of much data.
No longer works
Used to be a great app, but now (version 3.8.4) I can no longer download regional bird sets. Whenever I try to do so, the app freezes. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app without success.
3.8.4 Breaks Sound ID
I was hiking through the old-growth beech trees of the Sonian Forest in a symphony of birdsong, blissfully unaware of the fact that the Merlin dev team had changed the app to only autosave recordings if Location Services had fixed a location; adding location manually had no effect, and a tiny, clear, unobtrusively buried ‘save’ button went unnoticed, and there’s no feedback in the interface that a recording is being deleted. The result? I lost a couple hours of irreplaceable, high quality sound footage. I’m considering deleting a formerly beloved app: these design choices are at best clueless and at worst openly hostile and insulting to sound users. We can’t always have Location Services on (for battery drain in the wilderness let alone privacy) and if yall are going to insist in the most passive-aggressive way possible I’m out.
Never finds birds
I desperately WANT to love this app. I think the concept is amazing, I’ve even recommended it several times but I just cannot get it to work for me. It will record for ages and even show that it hears birds but when the recording stops there’s nothing that is identified. It’s so frustrating. I’ve seen other people with the app and it works just fine so I’m not sure what is going on with my phone. As I said when I listen back to recordings you can hear everything clearly but no IDs.
Spams review requests
I heard a bird call I’ve never heard before near my house. Opened Merlin up as quickly as possible. Was trying to mash the record button but it popped up a stupid “write us a review” dialog. Bird was gone before I got back in the app and clicked record.
Well fellas here is my review, as demanded.
Well fellas here is my review, as demanded.
LOST RECORDINGS
Merlin quietly made an update so your recordings are no longer saved by default. Was disappointed to return from an outing to find all my recordings were gone. Not deleted, not recoverable, never saved. This “just worked” for years and now you must remember to save every recording manually every time. A lot of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised by this change. Cornell got their data, you get nothing. Not great!
Spammy practices
Forces mailing list subscription and spams engagement notifications, for example about it being spring
Horrible update
Used to be good until update. Lost all my recordings, looking for new bird app.
Can’t download from AppStore.
First app I’ve ever tried to download and it just sets there and spins. Maybe the new version has a bug?
Where’s the “Download” button??
I finally found this Cornell option not offered by a third party that lists confusing security feature jargon; but I don’t see a straightforward download button. Somehow I deleted my app, and I just want to get it back.
Audio
The new update everytime I click sound it crashes
Don’t like the update
A great app, but I’m not liking the changes to the Explore page. When setting it to a specific location, it always defaults to sorting by ‘most likely’ no matter how many times I put it to ‘family’. The list is always incomplete too. I know a species is in the area I’m scrolling through, but it doesn’t show up unless I put it in the search bar.
Updating because the one thing I don’t like got even worse. Why are you only giving fifty species for an area that gets HUNDREDS TO THOUSANDS?!
Updating because the one thing I don’t like got even worse. Why are you only giving fifty species for an area that gets HUNDREDS TO THOUSANDS?!
Newest update is terrible
I love Merlin but whatever happened with the most recent update has caused my audio recordings to either not appear due to “an error” or require me to go back in to each individual recording and load the location to even listen to or see the bird list. It’s incredibly frustrating. The cancel recording button is also gone so now I have to save every recording then load the location, post-save, to even see which recordings I don’t want to keep. Please fix it!
Recording no longer save
Really unhappy to have the app stop saving recordings with no warning. We’re perfectly capable of deleting the ones we don’t want to keep. Lost several day before realizing the change.
No automatic save :(
Just realized none of my bird recent recordings are here. I just realized it’s because the recordings are Not saved. Nor is the “save” button apparent or even hinted at with a pop-up to alert users after update. Can we make Save the default? Please. Why change it if didn’t beed fixing?
Bug in v384
After viewing Sound ID Session, press X to exit session. App then freezes. Have to kill app and reopen.
Also not a bug but app no longer automatically saves Sound ID sessions.
Also not a bug but app no longer automatically saves Sound ID sessions.
Location glitch
I love knowing what birds are singing..but will SOMEONE PLEASE fix the location glitch? It won’t save my recordings and won’t accept the location I set
Strong but severely lacking
Great idea, way too slow, takes forever to process, no quick options to scan for birds that hear right now, by the time birds are done singing the app finally opens. It takes forever to do anything. It is so slow.
Sentiment summary
98%
Positive (4-5★)
1%
Neutral (3★)
1%
Negative (1-2★)