How to Manually Remove Clicks and Breaths in Audacity

Removing mouth clicks and intrusive breath sounds manually provides the cleanest vocal production without the unwanted artifacts of automated plugins. The fastest manual workflow in Audacity relies on combining the Spectrogram view for rapid visual identification with built-in tools like the Repair effect and Amplify shortcut repeats. By mastering a few specific keyboard shortcuts, you can isolate and eliminate these vocal distractions in seconds.

1. Switch to Spectrogram View for Instant Detection

Before editing, switch your track view to identify problem frequencies visually rather than hunting by ear:

  1. Click the drop-down arrow next to the track name on the left panel.
  2. Select Spectrogram.
  3. Mouth clicks appear as thin, bright, vertical lines extending into higher frequencies.
  4. Breaths appear as cloudy, soft blocks concentrated primarily in the lower and mid frequencies.

2. The Fastest Way to Remove Mouth Clicks: The Repair Tool

For transient mouth clicks, Audacity’s Repair tool is the fastest and most seamless manual fix.

  1. Zoom into the click using Ctrl + 1 (or Cmd + 1 on Mac) until you see the distinct spike in the waveform.
  2. Use the Selection Tool (F1) to highlight the click. Keep the selection tiny—the Repair tool only works on selections of 128 samples or fewer.
  3. Go to Effect > Special > Repair (or Effect > Repair in older Audacity versions). The click will immediately disappear, reconstructed smoothly using surrounding audio data.
  4. The Speed Trick: For all subsequent clicks throughout your project, simply highlight the click and press Ctrl + R (repeat last effect). You can sweep through an entire recording quickly by selecting a click and pressing this shortcut.

Alternative (The Draw Tool): If you zoom in past the 128-sample limit directly to individual sample points, press F3 to activate the Draw Tool (the pencil icon). Click and drag the aberrant sample point back into the natural curve of the wave.

3. The Fastest Way to Tame or Remove Breaths

Completely cutting out a breath often creates jarring dead air. The industry standard is to reduce the breath volume by 8 to 12 dB so it sounds natural.

The Attenuation Shortcut (Recommended):

  1. Highlight the breath sound with the Selection Tool.
  2. Navigate to Effect > Volume and Compression > Amplify.
  3. Set the Amplification (dB) slider to a negative value, such as -10 dB, and click Apply.
  4. Move to the next breath, select it, and immediately press Ctrl + R. This repeats the exact 10 dB reduction instantly.

Complete Silencing (Fastest for Absolute Quiet):

  1. Highlight the breath.
  2. Press Ctrl + L (Silence Audio).
  3. This instantly replaces the selected portion with absolute silence without shifting the timing of the track.

Summary of the Speed Workflow

To maximize editing speed across long vocal tracks: