POST
/v1/forced-alignment
ElevenLabs APICreate Forced Alignment
- Base URL
- https://api.elevenlabs.io
- Auth
- xi-api-key: <ELEVENLABS_API_KEY>
- Last verified
- 2026-09-03 · upstream hash matched
Actions
Agents: curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" this URL
→ 203 tokens · Vary: Accept
→ 203 tokens · Vary: Accept
Critical gotchas
Authentication uses the non-standard xi-api-key header, not Authorization: Bearer. Sending a Bearer token returns HTTP 401.
Text-to-speech responses are raw binary audio, not JSON. Write the body to a file (--output speech.mp3) rather than parsing it.
cURL
curl -X POST 'https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/forced-alignment' \ -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY" \ -F 'file=@sample.bin' \ -F 'text=string'Get a free ElevenLabs API key → sponsored
Parameters
| Name | In | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| file | body | string | Yes | The file to align. All major audio formats are supported. The file size must be less than 1GB. |
| text | body | string | Yes | The text to align with the audio. The input text can be in any format, however diarization is not supported at this time. |
Response 200 OK
{
"characters": [
{
"end": 0.02,
"start": 0,
"text": "H"
}
],
"words": [
{
"end": 1.02,
"loss": 0.12,
"start": 0,
"text": "Hello"
}
],
"loss": 0
}