Trim Silence from Start and End

How it works

1. Choose an audio file.
2. Set the silence threshold in dB and the padding to keep.
3. Check the new start and end highlighted on the waveform.
4. Export and download.

What gets trimmed

Only the silence before the first sound and after the last sound is removed; pauses in the middle are left alone (use Remove Silence for those). Trim both ends, or only the start or only the end. The page shows the exact time where the result will start and end and highlights the parts that will be cut on the waveform.

Audio is checked in steps of 10 milliseconds. A step is silent when its level, on every channel, is at or below the threshold in dB (0 dB is the loudest possible level, so -50 dB is very quiet). A run of silent steps counts only if it lasts at least the shortest silence you set. Peak looks at the loudest sample in each step and reacts to any click; Average (RMS) measures the overall level and ignores isolated clicks.

Padding keeps the edges natural

Padding is the amount of silence kept next to the sound, 100 milliseconds by default, so a breath, a reverb tail or the first note is not clipped. Set it to 0 for a hard cut, or raise it for a more relaxed lead-in. If the page says the whole file is silent, lower the threshold (towards -90 dB) because the recording is quieter than the setting.

Quality

The audio between the cut points is not changed. Lossy formats such as MP3 are encoded once on export at a bitrate close to the original, and WAV and FLAC stay lossless.

Questions