Woofly Support

How do I use Woofly?

Tap Start live listening once, allow the microphone when asked, and keep Woofly open on screen. Each bark, growl, or whine appears in the transcript as a word within a fraction of a second. When the barking pauses for about a second and a half, the whole outburst is read as one of eleven meanings and written out as a sentence. Every line also shows what was heard, a small picture of the bursts, and the measurements behind the reading.

Nothing appears when my dog barks.

1. Check that microphone access is allowed. If Woofly says Microphone access is off, tap Open Settings in the alert, or go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone and turn on Woofly.
2. Make sure the status line says Listening live. Listening stops whenever Woofly leaves the screen.
3. Bring the device within a few metres of your dog, with nothing covering the microphone.
4. Woofly waits for a clear dog-sound match before it writes anything. Faint or distant barking, or barking mixed with speech or music, may not produce a line. Speech, music, and cat sounds are ignored on purpose.
5. To test without a dog, play a dog-barking video from another device at normal volume within about a metre. Words should appear within half a second of each bark.

Does Woofly listen in the background or while the screen is locked?

No. Listening pauses as soon as Woofly moves to the background or the device locks, and the status line shows Paused while the app is in the background. Return to the app and tap again to resume.

Why did listening pause on its own?

Woofly pauses when the app goes to the background, when a call or another audio interruption comes in, and when the microphone route changes, for example when headphones or a Bluetooth headset connect or disconnect. The status line says which happened. Tap Start live listening to continue.

Does Woofly understand howls?

Best effort. Barks, growls, and whines are recognized reliably. The on-device sound recognizer does not label every howl as a dog sound, so some howls are missed, and an occasional cat meow can be mistaken for one.

How accurate are the meanings?

They are playful estimates, not mind reading. Woofly measures each bark's pitch, harshness, length, loudness, and rhythm and scores eleven meanings following patterns reported in bark research and the bark types trainers describe. It is not a validated model of canine emotion, and audio alone cannot see the toy, the visitor, or the squirrel. Watch your dog's body language too. If the transcript keeps saying Needs comfort or Something hurts, check your dog and call your vet.

Why does the same barking read differently for another dog?

Woofly learns each dog's usual pitch after a few barks and judges high and low against that baseline, so a Chihuahua and a Great Dane are each compared with their own voice. Until enough barks have been heard, a fixed scale is used.

Does Woofly record or upload audio?

No. Audio is analyzed in memory as it arrives and discarded. Nothing is recorded, saved, or uploaded, and Woofly makes no network connections of its own. See the Privacy Policy.

What does Woofly keep between launches, and how do I reset it?

Only your dog's learned pitch baseline, a number stored in the app's own folder on your device. The transcript is gone at the next launch. To reset the baseline, delete Woofly and install it again.

Which devices does Woofly support?

iPhone and iPad running iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 or later. Woofly works offline and needs no account.