Remove audio from video
A video file holds the picture and the sound as separate tracks, so removing the sound doesn't have to touch the picture at all. Drop a video here and Wave is already set to leave the audio out: when the video is H.264, HEVC or AV1 it copies the picture into a new MP4 without re-encoding a single frame, which takes seconds even for a long file. Everything happens in your browser, so a recording with a private conversation in the background never gets uploaded anywhere.
What actually changes
Removing audio is a container edit: Wave writes a new MP4 containing only the video track, so the picture is bit-for-bit what you started with. It drops every audio track, including second languages and commentary; when the video is copied, text subtitles and chapter marks stay. Sources whose video can't go into an MP4 as it is (WMV, AVI with older codecs, MPEG-2) are re-encoded to H.264 on the way, which takes longer but still never uploads anything.
The file gets smaller by whatever the audio was taking up. In a phone video at 10-20 Mbps, a 128-192 kbps AAC track is only 1-2% of the file. In a heavily compressed screen recording at 500 kbps, the same audio track is about a fifth. Silence still costs bytes when it's stored as a track, so dropping the track saves more than turning the volume down.
You can combine it with the other options in the same panel: trim the clip, rotate it, or set a file size. Removing the audio first also leaves more of a size target for the picture - at 16 MB, a 1-minute clip with no audio gets about 128 kbps more for the video.
If you'd rather do it on the command line, ffmpeg does the same thing with `ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -an output.mp4`: `-c copy` copies the streams without re-encoding and `-an` leaves out the audio. To keep a silent audio track instead of none (some editors expect one), use `ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v copy -af volume=0 -c:a aac output.mp4`.
Three steps.
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Step 1
Drop the video onto Wave above. On this page, Remove the audio track is already ticked.
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Step 2
Optional: open Options to trim, rotate or compress at the same time.
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Step 3
Select Convert to MP4 and save the silent MP4.
Answers, specifically.
Does removing the audio re-encode the video?
Not when the video is already H.264, HEVC or AV1 - Wave copies the picture byte for byte, so there's no quality change and it takes seconds. Older codecs like WMV are re-encoded to H.264, because MP4 can't hold them as they are.
How much smaller will the file be?
By the audio's share of the file: usually 1-2% for phone videos, up to about 20% for low-bitrate screen recordings. For a much smaller file, set a size target in the same panel.
What if the video has several audio tracks?
All of them are removed. To keep one language and drop the rest, ffmpeg can pick tracks by number: `ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:v -map 0:a:1 -c copy output.mp4` keeps the video and the second audio track.
Can I keep the sound as a separate file?
Yes. Drop the same video on MP4 to MP3 and Wave saves the audio as an MP3, so you have the picture and the sound as two files.
Can I do this on my phone?
On an iPhone, the Photos app can: open the video, tap Edit, tap the speaker icon at the top left, then Done. On Android, Google Photos has the same speaker toggle in its video editor.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Wave runs in your browser and processes the file on your device. That's the point for most people removing audio: whatever was said in the background stays on your computer.