> Shorty removes ums, uhs, stutters and false starts as part of your edit. Say it in one sentence; captions and timing follow the clean take. Source: https://shortyedit.com/features/remove-filler-words --- # Remove filler words from video in one prompt Shorty removes filler words as part of the edit. Write “remove the ums” in your brief, and the director cuts hesitations, stutters, repeated words and false starts from the picture and the sound, keeps words like “like” where they mean something, and rebuilds captions, music cues and the edit’s length on the clean take. ## When to use it For talking-head videos, interviews, founder updates, tutorials, podcast clips and UGC ads, anywhere a speaker’s hesitations slow the video down. It suits anyone who would rather describe the edit than hunt for each “um” on a timeline. ## Inputs, decisions and output | Part | Details | | --- | --- | | You provide | Footage with speech, and one line in your brief or a revision, such as “remove the ums and false starts.” | | Shorty handles | A verbatim transcript that keeps every hesitation, phonetic alignment of each word to the audio, a judgement on each candidate in its sentence, and the cuts in picture and sound. | | You control | What to cut and what to keep: only ums and uhs, or tics such as “like” and “you know” as well, and where the take should start. | | You receive | The finished edit built on the clean take, with captions, sound cues and length timed to the speech as it is now. | ## How to use it - Add the clips with speech to Shorty. - Write the rest of your brief as usual, and add a line such as “remove the ums, uhs and false starts.” - Say what to keep if it matters, for example “leave ‘like’ in, that’s how I talk.” - Submit, then watch the result. Ask in a revision if a cut needs to change. ## Example instruction Adapt this instruction to your footage and review the result. Make a 45-second vertical cut of this interview. Remove the ums, uhs, stutters and false starts, keep my pauses natural, and add word-by-word captions. ## See it on four real talks We ran four public talks through the same tool the director uses inside an edit. Across them, 107 words came out in 80 cuts, including every “um” and “uh” in the transcripts, and every kept word survived in order. The launch post plays each one before and after, with every removed word struck through. | Recording | Length before → after | Words cut | Cuts | Ums and uhs left | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Nik Storonsky, Revolut | 2:00 → 1:49.8 | 40 | 28 | 0 of 13 | | Prime Intellect, NVIDIA event | 1:00 → 0:53.2 | 38 | 27 | 0 of 16 | | Arjun Karanam, Trajectory | 2:00 → 1:54.4 | 22 | 21 | 0 of 8 | | Elon Musk, Tesla Roadster event | 2:00 → 1:58.4 | 7 | 4 | 0 of 1 | Sources: [Shorty News: four talks before and after](https://shortyedit.com/blog/filler-word-removal-ums-uhs-false-starts). Measured on excerpts of public YouTube talks on 20 October 2026. Results depend on the recording. ## What to check Listen at each cut. Joins are cut at sound boundaries with a 4-millisecond crossfade, but a cut can still be visible as a small jump on camera; ask for B-roll or captions over it in the same brief. A hesitation the recognizer doesn’t hear can’t be cut. English and Russian are tested by ear today; French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch are in testing. Each clip can have up to three minutes of speech, on up to four clips per edit, and Shorty never removes more than 30% of a recording as filler. ## Related workflows and examples ### All Shorty features Select footage, build a story, match a reference, add captions and revise the cut. Shorty edits video for creators, brands and agencies from their own source material. ### How to remove filler words like um and uh Use an editor that finds the fillers in the speech and cuts them for you. In Shorty, write “remove the ums and false starts” in your brief: the director cuts the hesitations, stutters and restarts and builds the rest of the edit, captions included, on the clean take. In Descript, CapCut or Premiere Pro, filler removal is its own step: transcribe, review the detected words, delete them, then keep editing. ### Remove filler words and add captions in one step Yes. In Shorty, one brief does both: write “remove the ums and add word-by-word captions,” and the director cuts the fillers, then times the captions to the speech as it is after the cuts. Other editors can do both inside one app, but as separate steps, and captions made before a cleanup can fall out of sync. ### Remove filler words without choppy cuts Cut at sound boundaries rather than rough word timestamps, crossfade each join for a few milliseconds, keep the natural pauses between thoughts, and cover any visible jump with B-roll, a punch-in or a caption. Shorty does the audio part for you when it removes fillers, and you can ask for B-roll or captions over the cuts in the same brief. ### Best AI tools to remove filler words For filler removal inside a finished social edit from one prompt, use Shorty. For editing long recordings as text, Descript. For a free social editor, CapCut. For recorded interviews and podcasts, Riverside. If you already cut in Premiere Pro, its transcript panel removes “uh” and “umm.” For one-click cleanup, VEED’s Magic Cut, and for clipping long videos, OpusClip. ### What filler words are, and which to cut Filler words are sounds and words that fill a pause while a speaker thinks: hesitations such as “um,” “uh” and “er,” and verbal tics such as “like,” “you know,” “basically” and “I mean.” Stutters, repeated words and false starts belong with them. Cut the hesitations and the tics that carry no meaning; keep a word when it is part of the meaning or the speaker’s natural voice. ### Captions timed to every word Shorty can add speech captions while assembling the video. Specify a font and visual treatment, then request wording, position or timing changes in the revision chat. ## Questions, answered. ### How do I remove filler words in Shorty? Add your footage and say it in your brief, for example “remove the ums, uhs and false starts.” The director cuts them from the picture and the sound and builds the rest of the edit, captions included, on the clean take. You can also ask for it in a revision of a finished edit. ### Does it catch every um? It removes every hesitation its transcript records; on the four talks in our launch post, that was all 38. A hesitation the recognizer doesn’t hear can’t be cut, so listen to the result and ask in a revision if one slipped through. ### Will it cut a “like” I meant to say? It shouldn’t. “Like,” “basically” and “you know” are judged in their sentence and only cut when they carry no meaning. In a Revolut talk we tested, “businesses like Stripe and Adyen” stayed. If you want them all kept, say so in your brief. ### Do captions still line up after the cuts? Yes. Captions, sound cues and the edit’s length are rebuilt from the cut transcript, so every caption lands where its word is now spoken. ### Which languages does Shorty’s filler removal support? English and Russian are tested by ear today. French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch are set up and in testing. Speech that mixes languages isn’t supported yet. Each clip can have up to three minutes of speech, on up to four clips per edit. ## Your next video starts here. Bring the footage. Tell us the idea. Shape the edit. --- Published by Tools Products FZ-LLC. Canonical HTML: https://shortyedit.com/features/remove-filler-words