Praat for MAC
Free, open-source speech analysis for Mac: study pitch, formants and intensity, synthesize and manipulate speech, label recordings and make pictures.
Praat Overview
Praat is a tool for doing phonetics by computer. It can analyse, synthesize and manipulate speech, and it creates high-quality pictures for publications. You can measure the pitch, formants, intensity and voice quality of a recording, view spectrograms and cochleagrams, and change the pitch, intensity and duration of an utterance.
Praat was created by Paul Boersma and David Weenink at the University of Amsterdam, and its authors now include Anastasia Shchupak. It is free and open source: the whole program is distributed under the GPL, version 3 or later. Version 7.0.02 adds new Corpus commands and a Sound: To CPP command. The Mac edition runs on Apple Silicon and Intel and is tested from macOS 10.15 Catalina to macOS 26 Tahoe. The app is signed by its authors, but its site warns that macOS can sometimes block it; you can then allow it under Security & Privacy. For good phonetic characters on screen you need to install the free Charis or Doulos SIL font.
Key Features
Praat brings speech research tools together in one program.
- Speech analysis: pitch, formants, intensity and voice quality.
- Spectrograms and cochleagrams: see how sound changes over time.
- Speech synthesis: acoustic, from a pitch curve and filters, or articulatory, from muscle activities.
- Speech manipulation: alter pitch, intensity and duration.
- Labelling: annotate sound segments, with IPA symbols.
- Grammar models: Optimality-Theoretic and Harmonic-Grammar learning, and neural-network models.
- Statistics: multidimensional scaling, principal component analysis and discriminant analysis.
- Publication pictures: high-quality figures of your results.
What’s New in Version 7.0.02
Praat 7.0.02 adds new commands for working with corpora and sound.
- Corpus: extract TextGrid, Sound and speakers Table
- CGN Corpus: extract components and education regions
- Sound: new To CPP command
Praat FAQ
Is Praat free?
Yes. Praat is free and open source, distributed under the GPL, version 3 or later.
Which macOS version does Praat need?
The authors test Praat 7.0.02 from macOS 10.15 Catalina up to macOS 26 Tahoe.
Does Praat run on Apple Silicon?
Yes. The Mac edition is tested on both Intel and Apple Silicon processors.
What is Praat used for?
For doing phonetics by computer: analysing, synthesizing, manipulating and labelling speech, and making pictures of the results for publications.
What can Praat measure in a recording?
Pitch, formants, intensity and voice quality. It also shows spectrograms and cochleagrams.
Can Praat synthesize speech?
Yes. It can generate speech from a pitch curve and filters you create, or from muscle activities.
Why does macOS refuse to open Praat?
The app is signed by its authors, but macOS can still block it, for example when it cannot check the app. Praat’s site says to choose Open from the right-click menu or to click Open Anyway under Security & Privacy.
Why do phonetic symbols look poor in Praat?
For good-quality phonetic characters, Praat’s site says to install the free Charis or Doulos SIL font.
Can I install Praat with Homebrew?
Yes. Run brew install --cask praat.
Where does the Praat download on praat.FULLMAC.app come from?
The download button leads to the official Praat download page at https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_mac.html. praat.FULLMAC.app does not change or repackage the app.
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