How to search a video by spoken words
Finding the exact moment a word or phrase was spoken in a long recording means scrubbing endlessly - unless you let speech recognition do the work. Lossless Video Cutter transcribes your video on-device and lets you jump straight to any moment by typing what was said.
4 min read
Two ways to use speech in the app
Speech Search
Type a word or phrase. The app transcribes the whole video and shows every timestamp where that phrase is spoken. Click to jump there and optionally add it as a segment.
Full Transcription
Generate a complete transcript as a timed document. Each line is clickable and jumps to that moment in the video. Useful for review, QA, or identifying segments for export.
Step-by-step: Speech Search
- Open your video with ⌘O.
- Open Speech Search from the toolbar or via Edit → Speech Search.
- Select the language if the auto-detection isn't correct. The app uses Apple's on-device speech recognition and supports all languages covered by macOS Dictation.
- Type your search term in the search field and press Return. The app transcribes the video (first run takes a moment; subsequent searches on the same file reuse the transcript).
- Browse results. Each match appears with the surrounding phrase and a timestamp. Click a result to move the playhead there.
- Add as segment (optional). For any result, click Add Segment to include that section in your export selection. Adjust the segment boundaries on the timeline to capture the full context.
- Export with ⌘E.
Privacy: everything stays on your Mac
Lossless Video Cutter uses Apple's on-device speech recognition - the same engine behind macOS Dictation when it runs offline. Your audio is never sent to a server. This matters when working with interview footage, sensitive meetings, medical discussions, or any content you'd rather not share with a third-party service.
Common use cases
- Finding every time a guest said their key message in a podcast recording to build a highlight reel
- Locating where a presenter said "the next point is" in a long conference recording
- Pulling all the moments a specific product name was mentioned in a sales call
- Identifying the take where the director's cue word was said correctly
- Reviewing a long deposition or interview for specific statements
Try it now
Speech Search is a Pro feature
Download free and start a 7-day trial to unlock speech search, full transcription, facial recognition, and all other Pro tools.