Donaldson R F Mute Video
Take the sound out of a video in a few seconds. The picture is copied as it is, not re-encoded, so there is no loss of quality — and nothing is uploaded.
How it works
A video file holds a picture stream and one or more sound streams. This tool copies the picture stream into a new file and leaves the sound stream out. Because the picture is copied and not decoded and encoded again, the result looks exactly like the original, the file is about the same size minus the audio, and even a long film takes only a few seconds.
The work is done by ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. That engine is about 31 MB. It is downloaded only when you press Mute video, checked against a known fingerprint, and stored in your browser, so the next time it starts at once. It runs in the background, so the page stays responsive, and you can press Cancel at any time.
Remove the sound or add a silent track?
Remove it completely gives the smallest file and is the right choice for most uses, such as a background clip on a web page or a screen recording with a noisy microphone. A silent track keeps an audio stream that contains only silence. Some social networks, editors and TV players expect every video to have audio, and refuse or mis-handle files without any. The silent track is added as low-bitrate AAC and is available for MP4, M4V, MOV and MKV files.
Frequently asked questions
Is my video uploaded?
No. The only download is the conversion engine itself. Your video is opened directly from your disk and never sent anywhere.
Will the quality change?
No. The picture is copied bit for bit. The result is saved in the same kind of file as the original (an MP4 stays an MP4, an MKV stays an MKV).
The video has several audio tracks, such as two languages.
All of them are removed. If you only want to keep the sound and drop the picture, use Extract Audio from Video instead.
What are the limits?
The limit is shown at the top of the page. Very large files need a lot of memory in the browser, because the finished file is built in memory before you can save it; on a phone or an old computer, try a smaller file if the tool reports that it ran out of memory.
Will it work with protected videos?
No. Videos protected by copy protection (DRM), such as many downloaded films or streaming-service files, cannot be read. Only use videos you have the right to use.
Related tools: Trim & Cut Video, Extract Frames from Video, Extract Audio from Video.