Premiere Assistant has two ways to remove silence. Which one you use depends on whether you need captions.
Use the [Remove silence] tab for a fast cleanup with no transcript.
Use [Trim] if you also plan to add captions. Trim transcribes first, so your captions stay in sync after silence is removed.
Remove silence tab
Use this when you want to remove silence quickly without transcribing your footage.
Step 1. Open Remove Silence and configure your settings
In Premiere Assistant, click [Remove silence] in the left panel.
Configure your remove silence settings:
Range: Choose which part of your sequence to process: [Whole sequence], [In/Out], or [Select Clip].
[Audio tracks]: Select the audio tracks to analyze. All tracks are selected at first. Click [Reload] to refresh the list if your tracks aren't showing.
[Removal method]: Choose [Ripple delete] to remove silence and close the gap, or [Move to another track] to move the audio to a separate track instead.
[Gap between sentences]: Set how much padding to leave between clips: Very short, Short, Medium, or Long.
[After word ends]: Fine-tune how much time to leave after a word before the cut.
[Minimum cut]: Set the minimum silence duration to remove. Lower values remove more silence.
[Before next word]: Fine-tune how much time to leave before the next word starts.
[Sound threshold]: Choose [Auto] to let Premiere Assistant detect silence automatically, or [Manual] to set the level yourself.
Click [Remove Silences] to process your footage. The changes are applied directly to your Premiere sequence.
Step 2. Undo or restore if needed
If the result isn't right, you have two options:
When Remove silence finishes, a Silence Removal Completed message shows how many silences were removed. Click [Restore Sequence] there to return your sequence to how it was before Remove silence ran, or [Done] to keep the result.
If you already closed that message, click [Undo changes] next to [Remove Silences], then click [Restore] in the Time machine window.
Premiere Assistant keeps one backup, taken just before the most recent run, so both options undo only the last run.
Remove silence via Trim
Use this method if you plan to add captions. Trim transcribes your footage first, so your captions stay in sync after silence is removed.
Step 1. Open Trim and transcribe
In Premiere Assistant, click [Trim] in the left panel. Configure your settings and click [Transcribe video for auto rough cut].
For full details on Trim settings, see Clean up your video with Trim.
Step 2. Open Cut tools and select Remove silence
Click [Cut tools] at the bottom of the panel and select [Remove silence]. Premiere Assistant generates a draft with the detected silence marked for removal.
A [Remove silence] panel opens on the right with four settings: [Gap between sentences] (set to Short at first), [Minimum cut], [After word ends], and [Before next word]. They work the same way as above, and the draft updates each time you change one. Range, audio tracks, removal method, and sound threshold are not available here.
Step 3. Review and save the draft
Review the changes in the draft. Click [Save] to keep them or [Discard] to start over.
Step 4. Apply to sequence
When your edits look right, click [Apply to sequence], then choose [Apply to original sequence] to push the changes to your current Premiere sequence, or [Create new sequence] to apply them to a copy of it.
Tip: Finish all your edits inside Premiere Assistant before clicking [Apply to sequence]. If you make changes directly in your Premiere sequence afterward, you will need to re-transcribe, which uses another transcription hour.
Note: Your captions will stay in sync when you apply the sequence. If you plan to continue working on captions, do not make any direct edits in the Premiere sequence afterward, as this can cause your captions to fall out of sync.
Troubleshooting
I only want to undo part of the Remove Silence edit
[Restore Sequence] reverts all changes made by Remove Silence. Partial restoration is not supported.
If you need more control over which silences get removed, use Remove silence via Trim instead of the standalone [Remove silence] tab. In Trim, you can review and adjust individual cuts before applying. See Remove silence via Trim above.
The result sounds unnatural after removing silence
Click [Restore Sequence] to undo, then adjust your settings before running Remove Silence again:
[Minimum cut]: Increase this to avoid removing short silences.
[After word ends]: Increase this to keep more space after each word before the next cut.
[Before next word]: Increase this to add more breathing room before the next word starts.
[Gap between sentences]: Set to Medium or Long to leave more natural pauses between sentences.
I want to keep some silence gaps, not remove all of them
Use [Move to another track] for the [Removal method] setting instead of [Ripple delete]. Premiere Assistant moves detected silence clips to a separate track rather than deleting them. You can then review that track and manually delete only the clips you want to remove. Use Alt+Delete (Windows) or Opt+Delete (Mac) to delete clips and ripple the timeline.
Is Remove silence counted when I use it through Trim > Cut tools?
No. Only the standalone [Remove silence] tab counts against your monthly Remove silence usage. Running Remove silence through [Trim] > [Cut tools] does not count against that limit, since it reuses the transcript you already generated in Trim instead of running a separate silence-detection pass.
This makes [Trim] > [Cut tools] a good option if you're close to your monthly Remove silence limit and already have a transcript ready.