About the Chapter Splitter
Turn one long recording into separate files automatically. The splitter scans the audio for gaps of silence — the pauses between audiobook chapters, songs on a digitised tape or vinyl side, segments of a lecture, or questions in an interview — and cuts at each one, exporting every segment as its own track. Everything runs on your device; nothing is uploaded.
How silence detection works
The tool uses FFmpeg's silencedetect filter with a threshold of -40 dB: any stretch where the level stays below that for at least your chosen minimum duration (1, 2 or 3 seconds) is treated as a gap. The audio is then cut in the middle of each gap so every segment starts and ends cleanly. Choosing the minimum duration is the key setting — too short and natural pauses in speech create dozens of fragments; too long and closely spaced tracks are merged.
Choosing a minimum silence
- 1.0 s — tightly edited content: podcast segments, sound-effect libraries, quiz questions.
- 2.0 s — the standard gap between tracks on albums, tapes and most audiobook chapters.
- 3.0 s — recordings with long pauses: lectures, meetings, meditation tracks, or noisy sources where shorter gaps are unreliable.
Typical projects
- Digitised cassettes, vinyl and MiniDiscs recorded as one file per side.
- Audiobook or podcast masters that need chapter files for distribution.
- Long voice memos or dictations containing several separate notes.
- Radio shows and DJ sets where you want individual songs.
- Language-learning audio with one phrase per track.
- After splitting, tag each file with the Audio Metadata Editor and name them with the Batch File Renamer.
How to use the Chapter Splitter
- 1Load the recording. Drop the long audio file onto the page. It stays on your device.
- 2Choose a minimum silence. Pick 1, 2 or 3 seconds depending on how long the gaps between sections are.
- 3Split. Click Split. The file is scanned and cut at every qualifying pause.
- 4Download. Download each segment, then rename and tag them as needed.
Frequently asked questions
- Nothing was split — why?
- The gaps are shorter than the minimum you selected, or the background noise is above -40 dB so silence is never detected (common with tape hiss). Try the 1.0 s setting, or run the recording through the Silence Remover or Equalizer first to reduce noise.
- I got far too many pieces.
- Increase the minimum silence to 2 or 3 seconds so pauses in speech are ignored and only real section breaks trigger a cut.
- Can I set the exact cut points myself?
- For manual, precise cuts use the Audio Splitter or the Audio Trimmer; this tool is designed for automatic splitting of long files.
- Is my recording uploaded?
- No. Detection and splitting run in your browser using FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly.