How to mute a video on Android

Mute a video in Google Photos

Google Photos is installed on most Android phones and can save a silent copy of a video. Where the mute control sits depends on your phone.

1. Open the Google Photos app and open the video.
2. Tap Edit to open the editing tools.
3. On most Android phones, tap Mute in the video tools.
4. On a Pixel 8 or later, tap Audio, then tap Mute.
5. Play the video to check that it is silent.
6. Tap Save. Google Photos saves a copy of the video with your edits.

Google says video editing in Google Photos is not available on non-Pixel phones running Android 9. If you don’t see the editing tools, use your phone’s own gallery app or an editor instead.

Google Photos also shows videos stored in folders on your phone, not only those from the camera. If you saved a video from a chat app, look for it in the device folders in the Collections or Library tab, open it there and edit it the same way. The silent copy appears in your library next to the original. Play it once with the volume up before you share it or delete the original.

Mute versus Audio Eraser on Pixel

Pixel 8 and later phones also show Audio Eraser in the same Audio menu. Audio Eraser is for reducing specific kinds of sound, such as wind or background noise, while keeping the rest. It is useful when you want to keep voices but lose the traffic behind them. Mute is the option that silences the whole video. If you want the file to have no sound at all, use Mute.

Use your phone’s gallery or a video editor

Many manufacturers ship their own gallery app with a video editor. Samsung Gallery and similar apps usually have a sound or volume control in the video editing tools that you can switch off or drag to zero before saving. Names and icons differ between brands and software versions, so look for a speaker icon or a volume setting after you tap the edit button.

Editing apps such as CapCut work the same way on every phone: select the clip, turn its volume down to zero or tap the mute control, then export. Our CapCut guide has the steps.

• Use Google Photos for a quick silent copy of one video.
• Use your gallery app if your phone doesn’t have Google Photos editing.
• Use a video editor when you also want to trim, add text or add music.

If none of these work on your phone, copy the video to a computer over USB and remove the audio there. Our Windows and Mac guides cover the tools that come with those systems.

Sharing and quality

Phone editors save a new encoded video, so the copy may have a slightly different size or bitrate than the original. For messaging and social media this rarely matters. If you need to keep the original quality exactly, for example for footage you will edit later on a computer, remove the audio on the computer with a stream-copy tool instead.

Messaging apps compress videos when they send them, whether or not they have sound. Muting removes the audio but doesn’t stop that compression. If you only need to send a clip without sound once, check the app’s own send screen first, as our WhatsApp guide explains.