How to edit audio on iPhone and iPad

Your iPhone is likely home to all kinds of audio files, be it your expansive music library, audiobook collection, podcast downloads, lectures or speeches, etc. You don’t need to buy expensive or professional audio-editing apps from the App Store to edit audio on your iPhone or iPad. If you’re looking to trim or cut audio on your iOS device, Documents by Readdle is the only app you need. Here’s how you can trim audio, delete unwanted parts from an audio file, or automatically remove silence from audio files — in just seconds using Documents.

What type of audio editing does Documents app support?

Documents by Readdle has professional audio-editing capabilities and makes it super easy to do the following types of edits to audio files:

1. Trim — To delete or remove unwanted parts from the beginning or end of a file, while retaining everything in between. It’s like chopping off two ends of a rope to make it shorter.
2. Cut — To delete or remove unwanted parts from anywhere in a file. For example, deleting any sponsored ad breaks from a podcast.
3. Remove silence — As the name suggests, this feature automatically analyzes the audio file and detects where there is silence so that you can remove it. This is especially useful for university lectures or speeches.

How to trim audio on iPhone and iPad

Let’s say you want to remove or delete the intro and outro music from a podcast series you’ve just downloaded from the internet. i.e. you want to trim down the audio files to just the parts you’re interested in.

Here’s how to instantly trim any audio on your iPhone or iPad using Documents.

1. Get Documents from the App Store if you haven’t already.
2. Open the audio file you want to trim in Documents. To do this, you can:
   1. copy files from other apps
   2. transfer files from your Mac or PC
   3. download them from the internet using the built-in browser in Documents.
3. Once the files are copied to Documents, tap on the three dots next to the file name.
4. Tap on the ‘Edit Audio’ option, which loads the ‘Trim’ feature by default.
5. Drag the yellow markers to mark the Start point and End point of the audio you want to keep. You can also manually type in the Start and End points.
6. The audiograph shows a preview of what you’ve marked. Everything marked in red will be trimmed. You can hit the play button to hear exactly what audio will stay intact.
7. Once you’re happy with the marks, tap on the Trim button to trim the audio.
8. Hit the Save button at the top right. You will be asked to choose a filename and the format you want to save the file in. Optionally, you can delete the original file.

That’s it! Your trimmed down audio file is now available to you in Documents.

How to delete parts from an audio file on iPhone and iPad

Instead of removing or deleting parts from the start and end of an audio file, what if you want to delete parts from anywhere in the middle? To do this, you’ll need to use the Cut feature in Documents. Here’s how to cut and delete parts from an audio file on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Get Documents from the App Store if you haven’t already.
2. Open the audio file you want to cut in Documents. 
3. Tap on the three dots next to the file name.
4. Tap on the ‘Edit Audio’ option, which loads the ‘Trim’ feature by default. Tap on the Cut tab at the bottom.
5. Drag the yellow markers to mark the Start point and End point of the audio you want to delete. You can also manually type in the Start and End points.
6. The audiograph above shows a preview of what you’ve marked. Everything marked in red will be trimmed. You can hit the play button to hear exactly what audio will stay intact.
7. Once you’re happy with the marks, tap on the ‘Cut’ button to delete the marked section.
8. Repeat steps 5 to 7 again to delete additional unwanted sections of audio.
9. When you’re done, hit the ‘Save’ button at the top right. You will be asked to choose a filename and the format you want to save the edited file as.

Pretty easy, isn’t it? Documents makes it very easy to edit audio on your iPhone and iPad.

How to remove silence from audio files on iPhone and iPad

If you have an audio recording of someone talking or reading something, it often has numerous seconds of silence every so often. You can instantly delete unwanted silence from any audio file using Documents. Here’s how!

1. Get Documents from the App Store if you haven’t already.
2. Open the audio file you want to remove silence from in Documents.
3. Tap on the three dots next to the file name.
4. Tap on the ‘Edit Audio’ option and switch to the ‘Silence’ tab at the bottom.
5. Documents will automatically analyze the audio file and display how many seconds of silence it has detected in it.
6. Tap on the ‘Remove silence’ button to delete the detected silent parts.
7. Tap the ‘Save’ button at the top right to save the file. You will be asked to choose a filename and the format in which you want to save the edited file.

How to edit the audio from a video file on iPhone and iPad

If you have a video file that you want to edit the audio from, fret not. Doing that is very easy too, it just involves one additional step we’ll outline below.

1. Get Documents from the App Store if you haven’t already.
2. Copy and open the video file in Documents that you want to edit the audio from.
3. Tap on the three dots next to the file name. 
4. Tap on the ‘Extract Audio’ option, then tap ‘Extract MP3 file’.
5. The extracted audio will now be available under ‘My Files’ in Documents.
6. Navigate to the file, tap on the three dots and choose the ‘Edit Audio’ option.

You can follow any of the three sections detailed above to Trim audio, Cut audio or Trim Silence from audio files in Documents.

The audio-editing features detailed here are part of the Documents Plus subscription. You can download Documents for Free from the App Store and try out these features with a complimentary 7-day trial, after which the subscription starts at just $9.99 a month.

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