How to remove audio in DaVinci Resolve

Unlink and delete the audio

When you add a clip with sound to the timeline on the Edit or Cut page, Resolve links its video and audio so they move together. Unlink them first.

1. Right-click the clip in the timeline and untick Link Clips.
2. Click an empty area of the timeline to deselect, then click only the audio part of the clip.
3. Press Delete or Backspace. The video stays and the audio is removed from the timeline.

You can also hold Alt (Option on Mac) and click the audio part to select it without unlinking. Keyboard shortcuts for linking and unlinking differ between versions and can be customized, so check the keyboard customization window if a shortcut doesn’t work.

The source file in the media pool keeps its sound. Deleting audio on the timeline only affects this timeline.

For a whole timeline, there is a quicker route. Lock each video track with the padlock icon in its track header, press Ctrl+A (Command+A on Mac) to select all clips, and press Delete. Clips on locked tracks can’t be selected or changed, so only the audio is removed. Unlock the video tracks when you are done. You can also turn off the Linked Selection button in the timeline toolbar, so that clicking a clip selects only the part you click until you turn it back on.

Mute a track or a single clip

Each audio track header has an M (mute) button. Muting the track silences everything on it during playback and in the render, and you can turn the sound back on at any time. To silence one clip, select it and lower its volume to the minimum in the Inspector.

A muted or silent track can still produce an audio track full of silence in the rendered file. If the file should have no audio track at all, use the Deliver page option below.

Render without audio on the Deliver page

1. Open the Deliver page at the bottom of the screen.
2. In Render Settings, choose a preset or Custom and set the format and codec.
3. Keep Export Video ticked on the Video tab.
4. Open the Audio tab and untick Export Audio.
5. Choose a file name and location, click Add to Render Queue, then click Render All.

The rendered file contains only video. This is the quickest method when you also need a version with sound, because the timeline stays unchanged. Render one job with Export Audio ticked and one without, and you have both versions from the same edit. The render settings can also be saved as a custom preset, so a silent export is one click the next time.

Rendering and quality

Resolve encodes a new file when it renders, so the result depends on the codec and quality you choose. For a near-lossless master, use a high-quality intermediate codec; for sharing, H.264 or H.265 at a bitrate similar to the source works well. If you don’t need any edits and only want the original file without sound, a stream copy with ffmpeg keeps the picture identical and takes seconds.

Before rendering, play through the timeline with the audio meters visible. Moving meters mean some clip still has sound.