QuietCut - a CLI that removes silence from videos

TL;DR - QuietCut is a CLI that removes silence from your videos. Get it at quietcut.net for $19.

Overview

QuietCut is a CLI that removes silence from videos.

• Raw video input.mkv - you record something and there's a bunch of empty silence where you're thinking or clicking around
• Output video output.mp4 - that same video, just with all the silence removed

Call it like:

quietcut input.mkv output.mp4

It's configurable:

• Silence thresholds - tune it to your typical videos and recording environment
• Input / output file types - mkv, mp4, and the rest
• Quality thresholds - balance speed against the output quality you need

Why I built it

I've been writing blogs for 13 years and making videos about them for the last 6. Last year I moved to Fedora and one of the issues with switching to Linux from Mac/Windows is that a lot of the commercial editing software doesn't run there.

I considered picking up one of the free video editors but it felt like a lot of work for the simple, single-take videos I make. So I built my own ffmpeg wrapper instead - it worked well and significantly lowered my editing costs, which matters since my videos don't make much money.

Now in the age of AI it's even easier to use, since AIs use CLIs natively.

How it's built

QuietCut is a Rust CLI wrapping ffmpeg. That gives me the ergonomics I want while leaning on the vast engineering that's gone into ffmpeg over the years.

It took several iterations to get it ergonomic, fast, and high quality - but it works well and I now use it for every video.

Roadmap

• Today - CLI, Linux-first.
• Coming - CLI for Mac
• Maybe one day - Windows support outside of WSL, a desktop app (Tauri) for folks who don't live in the terminal.

Links

• I built a game where you spend Elon Musk's money
• Why Rust Wins in the Age of AI
• How much money my 2k subscriber YouTube channel made in its first month of monetization