Ambient soundscapes from Istanbul, right in your menu bar.
Powered by BBC Rewind Sound Effects
A free, open-source macOS menu bar app that plays ambient sounds recorded in Istanbul on a continuous loop. Perfect as background white noise for focus, relaxation, or a virtual trip to the Bosphorus.
Homebrew (recommended)
brew install f/tap/istanbulManual download
Download the latest Istanbul.dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Istanbul to Applications. Since the app is not notarized, you may need to run:
xattr -cr /Applications/Istanbul.appAll 18 ambient recordings are sourced from the BBC Rewind Sound Effects library, captured on location across Istanbul:
| Sound | Duration |
|---|---|
| Street atmosphere, with voices, footsteps, and traffic | 3:18 |
| Sidestreet, occasional traffic on wet road | 3:01 |
| Sidestreet, with streetsellers and distant traffic | 1:53 |
| Street music, with passing traffic and voices | 2:57 |
| Spice market, with footsteps and voices | 4:14 |
| Covered bazaar, indoor acoustic with general activity | 5:19 |
| Kadikoy market, vegetable and meat sellers | 4:25 |
| Cafe atmosphere, backgammon and conversation | 5:07 |
| Quayside at Kadikoy, fish sellers and seagulls | 3:48 |
| Shoreside atmosphere, lapping water and passing boats | 4:50 |
| Ferry, Galata Bridge to Uskudar | 7:36 |
| Ferry boarded, voices and clattering ramps | 1:28 |
| Hagia Sophia church, interior with heavy reverb | 4:38 |
| Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) interior | 2:23 |
| Skyline atmosphere, call to prayer, children, traffic | 1:46 |
| Outside university, peanut sellers and pigeons | 2:10 |
| Child streetseller, with voices and distant music | 1:31 |
| Traffic at busy road junction | 5:00 |
Sounds download as MP3 on first play and are cached locally for offline use.
- Menu bar only — no Dock icon, no floating windows, just a clean tray icon
- One-click play — pick a sound and it loops continuously
- Volume control — custom slider right in the popover
- Offline cache — sounds are downloaded once and stored locally
- Lightweight — native Swift/SwiftUI, no Electron, no runtime dependencies
Requires macOS 14+ (Sonoma) and Xcode 16+.
git clone https://github.com/f/istanbul.git
cd istanbul
open Istanbul.xcodeprojHit Run in Xcode, or build a universal (arm64 + x86_64) DMG:
./build.shIstanbul is open source software released under the MIT License.
All ambient sounds are sourced from the BBC Rewind Sound Effects library and are provided under the RemArc licence. Per the licence terms, BBC sound effects may be used for non-commercial, personal, educational, and research purposes only. This app is free, non-commercial, and ad-free.
bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2026 BBC
For commercial use of BBC sound effects, see Pro Sound Effects.