I Built AutoCut AI to Remove Silence from Videos Automatically

M. Ulusan — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:22:45 +0000

Hey DEV community,

This is my first post here, so I wanted to introduce a project I have been working on for a long time: AutoCut AI.

AutoCut AI is an Android video editing app that automatically detects silence in videos and removes those empty parts. The main goal is simple: help creators turn long, slow recordings into cleaner videos without manually cutting every silent moment.

The Problem
If you record tutorials, podcasts, talking-head videos, courses, gaming commentary, or social media content, you probably know this pain:

You record a 10-minute video, but a lot of it is silence, pauses, thinking time, or empty space.

Manually finding and cutting those parts takes time. It is repetitive, boring, and easy to get wrong.

That is the problem AutoCut AI tries to solve.

What AutoCut AI Does
AutoCut AI analyzes the video audio, detects silent sections, and creates a shorter version by removing those parts.

Some of the main features are:

Automatic silence detection
Smart video cutting
Fast processing mode using Android MediaCodec
High quality processing mode using FFmpeg
Background video processing with progress notifications
Queue-based processing
Exported video preview and sharing
Tools for creators who want faster editing workflows
The idea is not to replace a full professional editor. The goal is to handle the repetitive part first, so creators can spend less time cleaning footage and more time improving the final video.

Why I Built It
I built AutoCut AI because I needed this workflow myself.

A lot of content creation time is lost before the real editing even starts. Removing silence is one of those tasks that feels simple, but when you do it again and again, it becomes expensive in time and energy.

I wanted an app where you could select a video, choose how aggressive the silence removal should be, start processing, and get a cleaner output.

Technical Side
The app is built with Flutter for the UI, but the video processing side is much closer to native Android.

Some parts of the processing pipeline use:

FFmpeg for high-quality exports
Android MediaCodec for faster processing
Native Android foreground services for long-running video jobs
Persistent task queues so processing can continue more reliably
Progress notifications during export
Video processing on Android is not easy. Different devices, codecs, Android versions, background limits, and Play Store requirements make it a constant challenge.

One of the biggest lessons from this project is that mobile video processing is not just about writing an export command. You also need to think about background execution, notifications, device compatibility, memory usage, app lifecycle, and failure recovery.

Current Focus
Right now, I am improving reliability.

For example:

Better background processing behavior
More accurate progress notifications
Safer task restoration
Fewer crashes and ANRs
More predictable export modes
The app has both a faster mode and a slower high-quality mode. The faster mode is useful when speed matters, while the slower mode gives better results around cut points.

What I Learned
Building this app taught me that “simple” video tools are not simple internally.

A button that says “remove silence” may hide a lot of complexity:

Audio analysis
Cut point calculation
Encoding decisions
Hardware acceleration
File system permissions
Android foreground services
Crash handling
User experience during long tasks
But that is also what makes the project interesting.

Final Thoughts
AutoCut AI is still improving, but it is already useful for creators who want to clean videos faster.

I am sharing this here because DEV seems like a good place to document the technical journey behind the app, especially the Android and Flutter video processing challenges.

If you have worked on video processing, FFmpeg, MediaCodec, Flutter plugins, or Android background services, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

DEV Community: M. Ulusan

I Built AutoCut AI to Remove Silence from Videos Automatically