Free tool
Cat Meow Decoder
Record your cat, answer six questions, and get two things: a real acoustic measurement of the call — pitch, length, melody, repetition — and an honest read on whether what you're seeing warrants a phone call to your vet.
The audio is analysed on your own device and never uploaded. No account, no email required to see your result.
1 Record your cat, or upload a clip
Fifteen to thirty seconds in a quiet room, as close as your cat will allow. Two or three separate calls beats one long one.
2 Tell us about your cat
These answers matter far more than the audio. They're the questions a vet nurse asks first when you phone in.
What we measured
What this pattern is generally associated with
These are population-level tendencies from research into cat vocalisation, not statements about your cat. Individual cats vary enormously, and many invent signals that apply only to their own household.
Call a vet regardless of anything above if:
- Your cat is straining in the litter box or crying while trying to urinate — in male cats this can be a blockage, which is fatal within about a day and is the one true emergency in cat medicine.
- Breathing is laboured, or your cat is breathing with their mouth open.
- They have not eaten for 24 hours. Cats develop liver problems from short fasts far more readily than dogs or people.
- They are hiding, unresponsive, or cry out when handled.
- Your instinct says something is wrong. You know your cat; this page does not.
Take this to your vet
We'll build you a one-page vet visit sheet from these exact answers and measurements, plus a printable 7-day vocalisation log — the thing that turns 'he's been noisy lately' into something a vet can actually work with. Both print straight from this page.
Ready to print
Both sheets are filled in with your answers and today's date, and they print straight from this page.
What the numbers actually mean
A meow is a tone with a shape. Three properties of that shape can be measured from a recording, and each one carries different information.
Pitch
Pitch is how high or low the call sits, measured in hertz — cycles per second. Most adult cats meowing at their humans land somewhere between roughly 300 and 800 Hz. Kittens sit higher, because a smaller larynx vibrates faster; the same physics puts a small cat above a large one. What's informative is not the absolute number so much as a change in it. A cat whose calls drop lower and get longer over a few weeks is doing something different from a cat with a naturally low voice.
Note that a purr will not show up as pitch at all. A purr is a very slow vibration — roughly 20 to 35 cycles per second — that modulates the volume of the sound rather than producing a tone. This tool looks for that separately and will tell you if it finds it.
Length and repetition
Short, repeated calls are the classic solicitation pattern: a cat asking for something and checking whether it worked. Long, drawn-out calls are a different category of signal. Yowling — sustained calls running past a second or two, often lower in pitch — is associated with distress, disorientation, territorial conflict and mating behaviour, and in older cats it's one of the most common reasons owners end up at the clinic.
Melody
Cat calls rise, fall, or hold steady in pitch, and the shape is measured here in semitones so it means the same thing regardless of how high your cat's voice sits naturally. Work on cat prosody has described rising melodies appearing more often in requests and friendly approaches, with flatter or falling shapes more typical of complaint or discomfort. Treat this as a tendency across many cats rather than a rule about yours — the variation between individuals is larger than the pattern.
Why the questions matter more than the sound
It would be more impressive if a recording alone could tell you what's wrong. It can't, and any tool that claims otherwise is selling you theatre. The signals that actually separate "my cat is being annoying" from "my cat needs a vet today" are behavioural and physical: whether they're eating, whether they're producing urine, how they're breathing, whether they're hiding.
That's why this page asks. The audio tells you something interesting about your cat. The checkboxes are what might get them treated in time.
Related reading
Common questions
Does this tell me what my cat is saying?
No, and be sceptical of anything that claims it does. Cats do not share a vocabulary the way people do — a meow that means 'feed me' in one household means something else in the next, because cats largely invent their vocal signals for the specific humans they live with. What this tool does is measure your cat's call — its pitch, length, melody and how many times they repeated it — and tell you what patterns like that are generally associated with in cat-behaviour research.
Is the analysis real, or is it for entertainment?
The measurements are real. Pitch is found with the McLeod Pitch Method, the same family of autocorrelation technique used in music and speech software, running on your device. Duration, call count and the rise or fall of the melody are measured from the audio you provide. If your recording is too quiet or too noisy to measure, the tool says so instead of guessing.
Does my recording get uploaded anywhere?
No. The audio is analysed inside your browser and never leaves your device. We do not receive it, store it, or have any way to listen to it. If you enter your email for the printable sheet, we receive your name and email — nothing else.
Can this replace a vet visit?
It cannot, and it is not built to try. It has no way to examine your cat, feel their abdomen, or run bloodwork. Treat it as a way to organise what you are noticing before you call the clinic. Where the tool is genuinely useful is the opposite direction: if you tick a red flag, it tells you plainly to stop reading and phone a vet.
What should I record?
Fifteen to thirty seconds is plenty. Get as close as you comfortably can, keep the room quiet, and try to capture two or three separate calls rather than one. Background television, a running tap or a fan will drown out the pitch and the tool will tell you it could not get a clean reading.
My cat is old and has started yowling at night. Is that normal ageing?
It is common in older cats, but common is not the same as harmless. New night-time yowling in a cat over ten is a recognised presentation for several treatable conditions, including an overactive thyroid and high blood pressure, as well as age-related cognitive change. It is worth a conversation with your vet and a blood panel rather than something to wait out.
If the answer was "this is behavioural"
Persistent night-time calling, demand meowing and anxious vocalising usually respond to changes in routine rather than anything medical. The Cat Anxiety Playbook is our step-by-step programme for exactly that.