How do I remove the sound from a screenshot?

What is a screenshot?

A screenshot is an image taken of whatever content is currently displayed on a device’s screen (Merriam-Webster, 2022). It captures the entire screen or a portion of it, allowing users to save or share the content being viewed. Screenshots are often used to provide examples, capture problems, or save something before it disappears. They are a basic function found across computers, smartphones, and other devices with visual displays.

By definition, a screenshot is a digital image taken by the operating system or software to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or other visual output device (Cambridge Dictionary, 2022). It serves as a snapshot of the screen contents at any given moment.

Why remove sound from screenshots?

Screenshots are intended as a visual medium to capture images on a screen for documentation, instruction, or sharing. As pictures, screenshots do not require sound. In fact, the audio captured from a device’s system during a screenshot is often unintended and unnecessary.

There are several reasons why users may want to remove audio from their screenshots:

Screenshots are used to visually convey information, making audio distracting or irrelevant. Audio clips can detract from the screenshot’s purpose.
Audio may contain sensitive conversations or media that a user does not want to share. Removing sound protects privacy.

Images shared without audio are more universal and accessible, especially for those with hearing impairments.
Audio tracks take up unnecessary file size, which can be problematic for storage or sharing screenshots.
Audio can be confusing out of context if a screenshot is shared without the original visuals.

Overall, as screenshots are meant to be visual media, capturing audio rarely adds value. Users often prefer silent screenshots that clearly and concisely communicate the intended information.

How audio gets captured in screenshots

Digital devices like computers, smartphones, and tablets are capable of capturing audio and video along with screenshots. This feature allows the operating systems on these devices to record system sounds and microphone audio when taking screenshots.

For example, on iOS for iPhone and iPad, enabling microphone access for the Screenshot app in Settings allows audio to be captured along with screenshots [1]. On Android devices, giving screenshot apps access to audio recording in Settings has the same effect. Windows 10 and 11 can also capture system audio by default during screenshots.

So when taking a screenshot, the operating system will record any sounds playing from your device speakers or microphone and embed the audio in the image file. This can be useful for capturing tutorials, presentations, or demonstrations. But sometimes users want to remove the audio while keeping the screenshot.

Disable system sound capture

The easiest way to take silent screenshots is to disable your system’s sound capture settings. This prevents any system sounds from being included when taking screenshots. Here are instructions for disabling screenshot sound capture on popular platforms:

Windows

On Windows 10 and 11, open the Start menu and go to Settings > System > Sound. Scroll down and toggle off “Play Windows Startup sound” to disable sounds when taking screenshots. You can also mute specific apps in Settings if only certain programs are capturing unwanted sounds.

Mac

On Macs, open System Preferences > Sound. Go to the Sound Effects tab and uncheck “Play user interface sound effects” (1). This will disable MacOS interface sounds from being included when you take screenshots.

iOS

There is currently no setting on iOS devices to disable screenshot sounds. However, there are some third party screenshot tools for iOS that allow silent capturing.

Android

On Android, the steps vary by manufacturer. Try going to Settings > Sound/Audio and toggling off any system sounds and sound effects. This may disable sounds from being included when screenshots are taken.

Use third-party screenshot tools

Many third-party screenshot tools allow you to disable the camera shutter sound when taking screenshots. Some top options include:

Cleanshot – Comes with standard capture options and allows you to disable system sounds.
Lightshot – Open source screenshot tool with annotation features that lets you toggle sound on/off.

Greenshot – Open source tool for Windows that has an option to mute sounds.

These third-party tools give you more flexibility and options for customizing your screenshots compared to built-in screenshot utilities. Checking their settings for a “mute sounds” or similar option is the easiest way to disable sounds.

Edit screenshots to remove audio

You can use the free online tool from https://flixier.com/tools/remove-audio-from-video to remove audio from a video screenshot. Here’s how:

Upload your screenshot image that contains audio to the Flixier tool
The tool detects if there’s audio embedded in the image file
It strips the audio and gives you back the silent image

Download the edited silent image to use on your computer or share online

This works for image files like JPG, PNG, GIF and more. The Flixier tool is free, easy to use, and processes the images quickly without needing to install any software.

Alternatively, you can open the screenshot in an image editor like Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.NET. Go to the save/export options and re-save the image in a format that doesn’t support audio like PNG, JPG, or GIF. This will strip out any embedded audio from the screenshot.

Convert to Silent Formats

One way to easily remove sound from a screenshot is to convert it to a silent image format. The two most common formats used for this purpose are the PNG (.png) and GIF (.gif) formats.

As described by FreeConvert.com in their PNG Converter tool, converting to PNG is an effective way to “quickly and easily create the PNG file you need”. Because PNG images do not support embedded audio, converting a screenshot to PNG strips out any sounds that may have been captured.

Similarly, the GIF file format does not allow audio embedding. By converting a screenshot containing audio to animated GIF format using the Online PNG Maker tool, all background sounds can be automatically removed in the exported image.

In summary, converting a screenshot from its native format like JPG or Bitmap to soundless PNG or GIF is a fast, automated way to strip any unwanted audio that may have gotten captured alongside the visual content.

Alternative Silent Screenshot Formats

If you want to capture your screen without audio, animated GIFs and silent video recordings are two good options. These allow you to record a short video of your screen and convert it to a shareable format without any sound.

One popular animated GIF recorder for Windows is LICEcap. This free tool lets you capture any area of your screen and save it directly as a high-quality, lightweight GIF. The resulting files work well for tutorials, presentations, bug reports, and more.

For Linux users, Peek is an open source animated GIF recorder and editor. After recording your screen, you can trim, crop, and export to a silent GIF.

Silent screen recordings are another option. Software like Screencast-O-Matic allows you to record your screen and save as a video file without capturing any audio. The video can then be shared online or converted to other formats.

Using one of these tools allows you to create engaging, soundless screenshots perfect for documentation, tutorials, bug reporting, and more. Just be sure to respect any copyrights and give proper attribution if recording copyrighted content.

Examples and use cases

When it comes to silent screenshots, there are several common use cases where disabling the shutter sound is important:

On an iPhone, users may want to take screenshots discreetly without making any noise, especially in quiet environments like libraries, meetings, classrooms, or theaters (https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/9mzmrw/opinion_its_really_not_necessary_for_ios_to_give/). The default shutter sound when taking screenshots on an iPhone can be disruptive.

Users may also want silent screenshots when capturing content that contains audio, like videos or music, where the screenshot sound would get captured and be undesirable (https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2124330-silently-take-screen-shots).

Silent screenshots are useful for troubleshooting visual issues or documenting processes where the focus is on the visuals only, not any sounds. Adding unnecessary sounds could be confusing.

Developers and testers often need to take many screenshots for documentation or bug reports, where repeated shutter sounds would be distracting and annoying in an office environment (https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX/issues/2685).

In general, silent screenshots allow capturing images discretely and without disruption in any situation where you don’t want to draw attention or make unnecessary noise.

Summary

In summary, screenshots may capture audio or system sounds because the screenshot captures what is occurring on the screen and from your device’s speaker output. Several options exist to disable system sounds during screenshots or use third-party screenshot tools that mute audio. Post processing of screenshots can remove or replace audio tracks as well. Overall, removing audio from screenshots can be useful to prevent unwanted sounds, distractions or private information from being accidentally captured and shared, improving privacy and control.