Free tool
Remove background noise from audio
Add a recording to remove background noise from audio right here: the whirr of a fan or air conditioner, mains hum, traffic outside, a keyboard. An AI speech model keeps the voice and takes out the rest, and a switch lets you hear the original and the cleaned sound as it plays.
- Free
- Before and after switch
- Nothing is uploaded
Drop your noisy recording here, or Choose your noisy recording
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AAC, or the sound of an MP4, MOV or WebM video, up to 1 GB and 2 hours. Everything happens in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
MP3 encoding by LAME, open-source software.
Noise on a call recording? NoteOwl records calls on your Mac from the call’s own sound and your microphone separately, so the other side comes through without your room behind them.
How it works
How do you remove background noise from audio?
Add the recording and the page cleans it straight away, in your browser. Press Listen to hear 15 seconds from the playhead, and switch between Original and Noise removed while it plays. Choose how much noise to remove, then download the result as MP3, WAV or M4A.
- 1
Add the noisy recording
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, or the sound of an MP4, MOV or WebM video. The noise remover, a 197 KB file, loads with it.
- 2
Listen before and after
Fifteen seconds from the playhead, with a switch between the original and the cleaned sound. Click the waveform to try another part.
- 3
Choose the strength and save
Take all of the noise out, or leave a trace about 20 or 10 dB down. Save as MP3, WAV or M4A.
Which background noises does it remove best?
Steady ones: a fan, air conditioning, mains hum, traffic outside, typing. In our tests they came down by about 30 to 40 dB in the pauses. Café chatter, other voices and music came down less, by 16 to 22 dB, because they sound more like speech.
Every 10 dB is roughly half as loud to the ear, so 30 dB leaves about an eighth of the noise you heard. We mixed real recordings of each noise into speech at the same level, cleaned them here, and measured the pauses between sentences before and after.
- Air conditioner
- Quieter by, on average38 dB
- Recordings tested1
- Fan
- Quieter by, on average34 dB
- Recordings tested3
- Mains or electrical hum
- Quieter by, on average34 dB
- Recordings tested3
- Keyboard typing
- Quieter by, on average32 dB
- Recordings tested1
- Street traffic
- Quieter by, on average29 dB
- Recordings tested1
- A busy room of people talking
- Quieter by, on average22 dB
- Recordings tested1
- Music
- Quieter by, on average17 dB
- Recordings tested2
- Café chatter
- Quieter by, on average16 dB
- Recordings tested2
| Noise | Quieter by, on average | Recordings tested |
|---|---|---|
| Air conditioner | 38 dB | 1 |
| Fan | 34 dB | 3 |
| Mains or electrical hum | 34 dB | 3 |
| Keyboard typing | 32 dB | 1 |
| Street traffic | 29 dB | 1 |
| A busy room of people talking | 22 dB | 1 |
| Music | 17 dB | 2 |
| Café chatter | 16 dB | 2 |
Does removing the noise change the voice?
Very little. Clean speech with no noise added came out within half a decibel of the original in every octave from 125 Hz to 16 kHz. What changes most are the pauses, which go quiet, while the words keep their tone.
In loud noise, some of the voice can go with it, mostly the quiet ends of words. Listen with the switch; if the voice sounds thin or watery, choose Leave a trace, which keeps the noise about 20 dB down and brings back what was taken with it.
Why do other voices and music stay in the recording?
Because the remover keeps whatever sounds like speech. A second person talking is speech, and music shares its pitch and rhythm, so they drop by 16 to 22 dB where a fan drops by 30 or more. To keep one voice from a busy room, record closer to it.
How does an AI noise remover run in a browser?
The noise remover is a small speech model, a 197 KB file, that runs on your computer’s processor inside the page. It works on the sound up to 8 kHz, where speech is; above that, the original is kept only where it stands above the noise.
On a Mac with Apple silicon, a minute of mono audio took about 3 seconds to clean in Chrome and about 4 seconds in Safari’s engine. A stereo recording whose two channels differ takes about twice as long.
How do you keep background noise out of call recordings?
Record the call’s own sound instead of the room. NoteOwl records calls on your Mac from the call’s audio and your microphone, kept separate, with no bot joining, so the other side comes through without your room behind them. NoteOwl then transcribes the call with each speaker labelled.
FAQ
Questions about removing background noise
Is my recording uploaded to remove the noise?
No. The recording is read, cleaned and saved inside your browser. The only download is the noise remover itself, a 197 KB file from this site, fetched once when you add a file. While we cleaned test recordings, the page made no other request.
Is the background noise remover free?
Yes, with no sign-up, no watermark and no limit on how many files you clean. A recording can be up to 1 GB and 2 hours long.
Can it remove noise from a video?
It takes the sound of an MP4, MOV or WebM video, removes the noise and saves the sound as MP3, WAV or M4A. The picture isn’t changed or saved.
What do Leave a trace and Turn it down do?
They turn the noise reduction down by mixing a little of the original back in, so the noise ends up about 20 dB down (Leave a trace) or 10 dB down (Turn it down) instead of gone. A room then sounds natural, and any part of the voice the remover thinned comes back.
What if my recording has no steady noise?
Then little changes. Under the result, the page shows the background level of the quietest moments before and after; when the two are close, there was little to remove. Clean speech comes through within half a decibel of the original.
How long does it take to remove the noise?
About 3 seconds for each minute of mono audio in Chrome on a Mac with Apple silicon, and about 4 in Safari’s engine: a ten-minute recording took 28 and 36 seconds. The page shows its progress while it works, and you can cancel at any time.
Keep exploring
More audio tools
- Audio enhancerMake a voice recording clearer in your browser: AI noise removal, a gentle speech EQ, a de-esser and loudness set to -16 LUFS; nothing is uploaded
- Volume boosterMake an audio file louder in your browser, up to +30 dB, with a limiter that stops it clipping and a preview before you save
- Audio trimmerTrim the start and end off a recording in your browser by dragging on its waveform; MP3, M4A, WAV and FLAC are cut without re-encoding
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Clear call recordings, notes written on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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