What It Does
Pause Cleaner analyzes audio and video layers in After Effects to find silence and dead air, then removes it automatically. It uses voice activity detection rather than a simple dB threshold, so it distinguishes actual silence from quiet speech and room tone. The result drops back into your composition in whichever form you need.
All processing runs locally on your machine. FFmpeg and the detection engine ship bundled with the plugin, so there is nothing extra to install and no audio is uploaded anywhere.
Key Features
Voice activity detection. Identifies pauses that volume-threshold tools miss, including quiet phrases and breath sounds, without trimming actual speech.
One-click presets. Four built-in pacing options: Subtle for interviews, Balanced for podcasts, Tight for tutorials, and Aggressive for reels. Pick one and click Clean.
Preview before applying. A pause strip shows every detected gap. Click any segment to keep, shorten, or cut it. Hold Cmd and click to listen with surrounding context before committing.
Three output modes. Results can land back in your comp as split layers in place (no rendering, instantly editable), a new precomp with segments stitched together, or a freshly rendered file imported straight into the active composition.
Audio and video sync. When processing a clip with both tracks, cuts are applied at identical timestamps and re-encoded via FFmpeg so sync is preserved.
Multiple output formats. Choose from H.264, HEVC, ProRes 422, DNxHR, or audio-only WAV, MP3, and AAC. Each format offers Draft, Standard, and High quality presets, or auto-match the source codec.
Hardware acceleration. Uses VideoToolbox on macOS with a software fallback on other systems.
Who It’s For
Pause Cleaner is aimed at editors working with spoken-word content inside After Effects: corporate explainers, tutorial recordings, podcasts, voice-overs, interview edits, lecture recordings, and short-form social videos. It is not a Premiere Pro or Resolve tool. The workflow stays entirely within After Effects, which makes it useful for projects that originate there rather than in a dedicated NLE.
Requires After Effects 2022 or newer (CSXS 11 / CEP 11). Compatible with macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows 10/11 64-bit.
Pricing
Pause Cleaner is a one-time purchase at $48.57 for a single-user license. A floating server license is also available. A free trial is offered through the aescripts licensing framework.