Long pauses between sentences make an edit drag. Remove silence tightens them across your whole draft in one pass, and you can put them back whenever you like.
Open the tool
At the top of the project panel, switch from [Project] to [Apps].
Click [Remove silence].
Note: Remove silence works on a draft. If a source file is open when you click it, Selects asks you to select a draft first.
Choose how much space to leave
Under [Gap between sentences], pick how tight you want the result:
[No gap]: the tightest option, sentences run straight into each other.
[Short]: a small pause between sentences.
[Medium]: more room to breathe.
[Custom]: set the timing yourself.
Below the options are three timing fields. They show the values for the option you picked, and changing any of them switches the option to [Custom]:
[After word ends]: how much silence to keep after the last word of a sentence.
[Minimum cut]: the shortest silence worth removing. Raise this to leave natural breaths alone.
[Before next word]: how much silence to keep before the next sentence starts.
Click [Apply]. The button reads [Processing] while it works, then [Applied] when it is done.
Put the pauses back
Under [Gap between sentences], choose [Restore] and click [Apply] to bring every gap back. Nothing is deleted from your footage, the silences are only cut from the draft, so you can restore and reapply as often as you want.
FAQs
Why does Remove silence ask me to select a draft?
Remove silence only works on a draft. If a source file is open, Selects shows "Select a draft to work on". Open a draft and click the tool again.
Does this delete parts of my footage?
No. The silences are cut from the draft, not removed from your files. Applying [Restore] brings them all back, and your original media is never changed.
It removed pauses I wanted to keep
Choose [Restore] and click [Apply], then choose [Custom] and raise [Minimum cut] so shorter pauses are left alone. You can also increase [After word ends] and [Before next word] to keep more room around each sentence.