Chord Lens
Real fretboard diagrams
Finger positions, not just chord names. Your hands know what to do before your brain finishes reading the letter.
Chrome extension for guitarists
See the chord.
Not just its name.
Most chord finders hand you letters and wish you luck. Chord Lens puts the actual fretboard shape on screen the moment the chord lands — over any YouTube video, locked to the beat, with the key, the tempo and capo transposing built in.
- No account
- No tracking
- Nothing recorded from your browser
- Free
F
C
G
Am
Am7
Following the song, beat by beat
Analysis runs on our server, not your laptop
Your fan stays quiet, your tabs stay fast
Only the video ID ever leaves your browser
What you get
Everything you need to play along, on one screen
Built by someone who got tired of pausing the video, scrolling a comment thread, and hoping the tab was right.
Capo that actually works
Song sitting in E flat? Pick any fret from 1 to 12 and every chord name and diagram transposes instantly. Your setting is remembered.
Key and tempo, detected
The song's musical key and BPM sit at the top of the overlay. Grab both in two seconds before the band counts in.
Simplify complex chords
One toggle collapses the sevenths and extensions down to the shapes you can already play. Turn it off when you want the detail back.
Instant on replay
Once a video has been analysed, the chart loads immediately. Come back tomorrow, next week, next month — it is already there.
Any genre, any recording
Acoustic, electric, piano-led, full-band, live, solo covers. It listens to the audio in the video itself, not to a tab someone typed out wrong in 2009.
Shapes, not letters
This is the difference
A chord name is a lookup task. A diagram is an instruction. Chord Lens draws the shape for every chord in the song.
See it running
Three ways to read the same song
Chord names while you follow along, full fretboard shapes while you are learning the part, and the whole chart in a window of its own when you want to see where the song is going. One click moves between them, mid-song, without losing the beat.
E
A
D
Dmaj7
D
C♯
F♯m
E
A
0:53
15:46
The player overlay
Cards centred on the chord playing right now, with the ones coming next already in view so you can move your fingers early. The red line under the current card runs down as its beats do.
0:53
15:46
Diagram mode
The same row, switched to real fretboard shapes — finger numbers, open strings, muted strings, and the fret to start from when the shape moves up the neck.
Chord Sheet
Simplify
Capo 0
4 bars
Buy me a coffee
17DA
21DAF♯mDF♯E
25A
29DDmaj7D
33C♯F♯mE
37AD
The detached sheet
Every bar, numbered, in a window of its own — drag it to a second monitor and leave YouTube full screen. The current beat lights up, the sheet scrolls itself, and clicking a bar jumps the video straight to it.
How it works
Three steps, no setup
No account, no signup, nothing to configure.
Install Chord Lens
One click from the Chrome Web Store. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to configure afterwards.
Open a song and click Chords
The button sits in the YouTube player. First analysis takes a moment; every replay after that is instant.
Play along
The chart follows the video at any speed. Set a capo, simplify the chords, or pop the sheet out to a second screen.
Questions
Quick answers
Do I need an account?
No. Install it, open a video, click Chords. There is no signup, no login and no profile.
Does it record my audio or my screen?
No. Chord Lens never touches your microphone, your tab audio or your screen. The only thing it sends is the YouTube video ID, which our server uses to analyse that video's audio.
Does it work with slowed-down playback?
Yes. The chart stays locked to the video at any playback speed.
Can I turn the diagrams off and just see chord names?
Yes. Toggle "Show guitar chord chart" in the player's ••• menu and the cards fall back to names only.
Does it work on live versions and covers?
Both. It analyses the audio in the video itself, so a live recording or a bedroom cover gets its own chart rather than the studio version's.
Can I see the whole song at once?
Yes. Click Sheet for the full chord chart in its own resizable window. Move it anywhere, including a second monitor, and pick how many bars sit on each row.
Guitar only, or other instruments too?
Guitar shapes only for now. Chord names and the sheet work for any instrument, but the diagrams are guitar fingerings.
What does it cost?
Nothing. Chord Lens is free. Server analysis is not, so if it saves you an evening of squinting at comment threads you can buy me a coffee.
One click from watching to playing
Turn every video into a chord chart
You already learn songs on YouTube. Chord Lens puts the chords on the screen — with the shapes, in your key, at your capo — and lets you keep playing.
