How to edit a podcast

1. Keep the original, then listen through once

Keep the raw recording untouched and edit a copy, so any cut can be undone. Then listen to the whole episode once before cutting anything, and mark what to remove and the moments worth keeping, the ones you'll open on or clip for social.

2. Make the big cuts first

Start with structure: cut the warm-up before the conversation really starts, tangents that go nowhere, false starts and anything you'd skip as a listener. Big cuts first, polish later: there's no point cleaning up a section you're about to remove.

If the best part of the episode is in the middle, consider opening with a short excerpt of it before the intro.

3. Remove pauses and filler, gently

Shorten long silences and cut most "ums", "uhs" and repeated words, but keep natural breaths and a little thinking time. Removing every pause makes people sound rushed and robotic. On a video podcast, cut picture and sound together so lips stay in sync.

4. Balance the voices

Make every speaker roughly the same loudness, so listeners don't reach for the volume. Keep music and sound effects well under speech, and fade them under the voice rather than letting them compete. If one person was much closer to their microphone, that's where most balancing work goes.

5. On video: show who's talking

With a camera per person, cut to whoever is speaking, and use a wide shot for quick back-and-forth. Captions help on social platforms and for anyone watching without sound.

6. Finish: intro, chapters and clips

Add a short intro and outro if you use them, and chapters so listeners can jump to topics (on YouTube, chapters go in the description). Then cut the strongest moments into short clips to promote the episode; see how to turn a podcast into Shorts.

Doing it in MirrorCut

MirrorCut is an AI video editor for your own recordings. Upload the footage and ask; its agent makes the edit on a real timeline, and every change is outlined for you to accept or revert. For example:

• “Remove the dead air and filler words across every track, keeping a natural pace”
• “Cut the false starts and the tangent about the weather”
• “Switch cameras to whoever is speaking”
• “Make the music quieter under the voices and add chapter markers at each topic change”

Free tools

No sign-up; they run in your browser.

• YouTube chapters generatorPaste your timestamps and get a YouTube chapter list ready for the description, checked against YouTube's rules: 00:00 first, three or more, 10 seconds each.
• SRT to VTT caption converterConvert caption files between SRT and WebVTT in your browser: paste or drop a file, convert it, and download the result. Nothing is uploaded.

Questions

How long does it take to edit a podcast?

It depends on the episode and how polished you want it: a light clean-up is much quicker than a heavily restructured edit. Making the big cuts first and leaving the pause and filler clean-up to software saves the most time.

Should I remove every um and pause?

No. Cut the long silences and most filler words, but keep natural breaths and some thinking time. Over-edited speech sounds rushed and less like a real conversation.

Do I need different software for video podcasts?

You need an editor that cuts picture and sound together, ideally one that can switch between camera angles. Audio-only editors work for audio podcasts but not for the video version.