Remove silence from audio online, free, and see what goes.
To remove silence from audio, choose your file and see the pauses marked in red on the waveform. Adjust the threshold, the minimum pause and the padding, preview the result and download it as MP3 or WAV, plus a CSV of the kept ranges. Works with video and WhatsApp voice notes. Free, no sign-up.
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Want to cut by what was said, not just by silence? We transcribe word by word and you download only the sentences you mark.
How to remove silence from audio
- 01
Choose the audio or video
Drop an MP3, WAV, M4A, a WhatsApp voice note or an MP4 or MOV video. We measure the level every 10 ms and suggest a threshold for that file.
- 02
Check the pauses in red
The waveform shows in red what will go. Change the threshold, minimum pause and padding: the waveform and the summary update right away. Play 20 s of the result before exporting.
- 03
Download the audio and the CSV
Choose MP3 or WAV and click remove silence. You get the audio without the pauses and, if you want, a CSV with the start and end of every kept range.
How to cut silence from audio without clipping words
Anything below the threshold, in dBFS, counts as silence. The threshold starts at a value suggested from the file's own background noise: in a studio recording the noise sits near -60 dB and the suggestion usually lands around -45 dB; in a room with a fan, the noise rises and the suggestion rises with it. If you move it and get lost, back to suggested restores the starting value.
Two settings protect the speech. The minimum pause, 0.5 s by default, leaves short pauses alone, since they are the natural breathing between sentences. The padding, 0.15 s by default, stays on both sides of each phrase so the first and last syllables are not clipped. In practice, a three-second pause becomes a pause of about 0.3 s, twice the padding. Silence at the very start and end of the file goes too, keeping the padding.
- Clipping words? Raise the padding to 0.2 or 0.25 s.
- Too many pauses left? Lower the minimum pause to 0.3 s.
- Noisy recording? Raise the threshold until the red covers only the pauses.
- Pace feels rushed? Raise the minimum pause to 1 s.
How much time does removing pauses save?
It depends on how the person talks. A calm recorded lecture, a long voice note or an interview with thinking pauses usually shrinks much more than a podcast that was already edited. The summary above the waveform shows, before you export, how many pauses will go and how many minutes and seconds the audio loses, with the percentage.
At every join we apply a 10 ms crossfade so there is no click. The final file keeps the sample rate and the channels of the original. For sending or publishing, a 192 kbps MP3 is light; to keep editing, choose 16-bit WAV.
| Type of recording | Settings that usually work |
|---|---|
| Recorded lecture or sermon | Minimum pause 0.5 s, padding 0.15 s |
| Podcast with two mics | Minimum pause 0.8 s, padding 0.2 s |
| WhatsApp voice note | Minimum pause 0.4 s, padding 0.1 s |
| Voice-over for video | Minimum pause 0.3 s, padding 0.1 s |
What is the CSV of kept ranges for?
Video editors often want more than the audio without pauses: they want the same cut on the timeline, with the picture. The CSV has one row per kept range, with the range number, the start and end in the original as HH:MM:SS.mmm, the duration, and where the range starts and ends in the new file.
With that list you can cut the video in Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro or CapCut at the same points, by hand. It opens in any spreadsheet, such as Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers.
| Range | Start | End | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 00:00:01.240 | 00:00:09.870 | 00:00:08.630 |
| 2 | 00:00:12.410 | 00:00:20.050 | 00:00:07.640 |
| 3 | 00:00:23.900 | 00:00:41.320 | 00:00:17.420 |
What a silence remover can't fix
It measures volume; it does not understand the content. Heavy breathing, background music or noise above the threshold count as sound, so a pause with music under it stays. Filler sounds like "uh" and "um" stay too, because they are speech. On noisy recordings, raise the threshold and check the red on the waveform before exporting.
It works with MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WhatsApp OPUS and MP4, MOV and WebM video; with video, you download the audio only. Long files, like a full church service, work too, with the percentage and time left, and you can cancel at any moment.
More than cutting pauses. Edit by what was said.
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove silence from audio for free?
Choose your file on this page, check the pauses marked in red on the waveform and click remove silence. The audio comes out as a 192 kbps MP3 or as WAV, with a CSV of the kept ranges if you want it. It is free, with no sign-up and no watermark.
What silence threshold should I use?
Start with the suggested one: it is worked out from your file's background noise. If red shows up over quiet words, lower the threshold a few dB. If noisy pauses are left in, raise it. The slider goes from -70 to -20 dB.
Does removing silence clip the start of words?
Not with padding on. We keep 0.15 s before and after each phrase by default, and you can go up to 0.5 s. Joins get a 10 ms crossfade, so there is no click. Play the 20 s preview to check before you download.
Can I remove silence from a video?
You can use an MP4, MOV or WebM video as the input: we measure the soundtrack and you download the audio without the pauses. The video itself is not cut here. To rebuild the cut on the picture, use the CSV with the start and end of every range in your editor.
Does it work with WhatsApp voice notes?
Yes. WhatsApp voice notes are OPUS or OGG files, and both work. For voice messages, a minimum pause of 0.4 s and padding of 0.1 s usually make the audio tighter without sounding chopped.
Does it remove "um" and filler words?
No. A silence remover only measures volume, and an "um" is sound. Heavy breaths and pauses with music under them also stay when they go past the threshold.
Does it lose quality?
With WAV, no: the audio is written uncompressed, at 16 bits, with the same rate and channels as the original. With MP3, the audio is compressed again at 192 kbps, a good rate for voice and music.
Cut by what was said, not just by silence. We transcribe, you pick the sentences.
Upload the audio, the video or a YouTube link. We transcribe word by word, with the time of every line, and you download only the parts you mark or take a cut timeline to Premiere, DaVinci or Final Cut.
See the result on your own recording before adding a card.