Filler words

For now, this feature can only detect filler words in English transcripts.

How to remove filler words

Descript will analyze your script and identify unnecessary “um”s and “uh”s in your composition. These filler words will have a light-blue underline in the Script editor.

You can review and remove all detected filler words in a composition or project by selecting 2024-05-29_15-25-05.pngUnderlord and choosing Remove filler words.

remove filler words.png

 

From there, you’ll be able to see a list of all the detected filler words in the sidebar and select how you'd like to proceed. You can review the timestamps for each filler word and hear a preview before removing from the script.

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You can preview each section where a filler word was identified and deal with it in one of four ways:

Delete Remove both the text and the audio.
Delete and replace with gap When selected, deleted script content will be replaced with a gap clip. Click here to learn more about gap clips.
Ignore Strikethrough the text in the script while removing the audio. This is useful for seeing what filler words you've removed and makes it early to bring them back if you change your mind.

Remove from transcript

Remove the filler word or phrase only from the script without affecting the audio.

 

Removing filler words from a section of your composition

When you run Remove filler words, it will affect the entire composition in which you're currently working. However, in some cases you may want to remove filler words from only specific sections of your script. Here's how you can do that:

  1. Select the section of your script from which you want to remove filler words
  2. Follow the steps here to duplicate the selection to a new composition: Duplicate selection 
  3. Open the new composition and run Remove filler words
  4. Copy the script and paste it back into your original composition

What are considered filler words?

If you are using a legacy plan with Descript, filler word removal is available to varying degrees. Higher-tier legacy plans have access to advanced contextual search algorithms that can identify more filler words and phrases in your compositions. All non-legacy plans have access to the full list of filler words. Below is a list of filler words detected for each legacy plan:

Hobbyist (Legacy) Creator and Business (Legacy)
  Repeated words
"mmm" "mmm"
"um" "um"
"uh" "uh"
"hm" "hm"
  "but you know"
  "I guess"
  "I mean"
  "I suppose"
  "kind of"
  "like"
  "or something"
  "so"
  "sort of"
  "well"
  "you know"
  "you know what I mean"
  "you see"