Slow it down.
Jump back. Listen again.

A small, fast audio player for the Mac, for anyone who listens to the same recording over and over: transcribers, interviewers, language learners and musicians learning a part by ear.

Download for Mac Try it in your browser

Version 0.4.0 · free · macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Apple silicon and Intel · .zip instead · SHA-256

Built around one loop

TempoJump does one thing well, with as little as possible between you and the audio.

listen→arrow back→listen→slow down→type a timestamp→carry on

Pitch-preserved speed

0.50× to 2.00×, tuned around the 0.65–0.90× band where speech review happens. Slowed voices stay at the same pitch.

Exact 15-second jumps

The arrow keys seek precisely, clamped to the file, with no keyframe guessing. Shift jumps a full minute.

Type a timestamp and go

17:42, 90, 1h2m30s: they all mean what you'd expect. Enter seeks and plays.

Remembers where you stopped

Every file picks up where you left it, across launches. A track list holds up to 25 files, one click or ⌘1 apart.

A metronome with drum loops

40–240 BPM, a plain click in 4/4, 3/4 or 6/8, or one of fifteen grooves from Rock to Bossa Nova, mixed under the track at its own volume.

Private by construction

No network code, no accounts, no analytics. Your audio is played on your Mac and never sent anywhere.

Keyboard first

Every command is a real menu item with a real shortcut.

`Space`	Play / pause
`←` `→`	Back / forward 15 seconds
`⇧←` `⇧→`	Back / forward 60 seconds
`[` `]`	Slower / faster by 0.05×
`\`	Back to exactly 1.00×
`⌘J`	Jump to a timestamp

`⏎`	Seek and play
`⌥⏎`	Seek and stay paused
`⌘1`…`⌘9`	Switch track
`M`	Metronome on / off
`=` `-`	Tempo up / down 1 BPM
`⌘O`	Open a file

Install

TempoJump is signed by its author rather than through Apple's paid developer program, so your Mac asks you to approve it once. After that it opens like any other app.

Download the .dmg, open it and drag TempoJump into Applications.
Open TempoJump. macOS will block it the first time, saying it can't verify the developer. That's expected.
Go to Apple menu → System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll to Security. Next to the line saying TempoJump was blocked, click Open Anyway and authenticate.
Open TempoJump again and confirm. You won't be asked again.

To check the download is intact, compare shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/TempoJump-0.4.0.dmg with the published checksum.

Comfortable in Terminal? This approves just this one app in one step:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/TempoJump.app

On macOS 15 and later, Control-clicking the app and choosing Open no longer gets past this prompt; it has to go through System Settings. Please don't turn Gatekeeper off altogether to run one app.

Slow it down.Jump back. Listen again.