Subtitle Cleaner
Turn SDH or messy subtitles into clean, readable ones. The cleaner removes hearing-impaired descriptions in brackets and parentheses, speaker labels such as “JOHN:”, formatting tags, music lines and advertising or credit lines like “Subtitles by …” or website addresses. It drops cues that become empty, merges repeated cues and tidies dashes and spaces – each step can be switched on or off.
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Free to use
How to use Subtitle Cleaner
- Paste subtitles or open a file.
- Choose what to remove.
- Click Clean.
- Check the summary and download the clean file.
Subtitle Cleaner features
SDH removal
[sounds] and (descriptions) removed.
Speaker labels
Capitalised names before a colon.
Tag removal
Italic, bold, font and position codes.
Ad and credit lines
Websites and “Subtitles by …”.
Duplicates
Repeated cues merged.
Private
Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
When to use Subtitle Cleaner
- Watching with subtitles but without hearing-impaired descriptions.
- Removing advertising lines from downloaded subtitles.
- Preparing text for translation or analysis.
- Cleaning automatic captions.
Subtitle Cleaner FAQ
What are SDH subtitles?
Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. They include sound descriptions such as [door slams] and speaker names, which hearing viewers often find distracting.
Will it remove names in normal sentences?
No. Only capitalised labels at the start of a line followed by a colon are removed, such as “JOHN:” or “MAN 2:”. “Note: …” stays.
Can it remove lyrics?
Lines starting with ♪ or ♫ are removed when the music option is on.
Is the timing changed?
No. Cues keep their times; only repeated consecutive cues with the same text are joined into one.
Which formats are supported?
SRT and WebVTT (.vtt), detected automatically. Open a file or paste the text.
Is my file uploaded?
No. Everything happens in your browser.
What subtitle cleaning removes
Subtitle files collected from different sources often contain more than the dialogue. Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing describe sounds and name speakers. Fan-made files carry credits and website addresses, sometimes in the first and last cues. Converted files contain leftover formatting codes. All of these get in the way when you just want to read the dialogue.
The cleaner works line by line inside each cue. Bracketed and parenthesised descriptions are removed, as are capitalised speaker labels at the start of a line. Dialogue dashes that are left alone on a line are dropped, and a single remaining line loses its dash. Optional formatting removal strips HTML-like tags and ASS codes.
Whole cues that match typical advertising patterns – “Subtitles by”, “Synced and corrected by”, subtitle site names and web addresses – are removed entirely. Cues that become empty after cleaning are dropped, and consecutive cues with identical text, a common artefact of automatic captions, are merged into one longer cue.
The summary tells you exactly how many items were removed in each category, so you can confirm that nothing important disappeared. Every option can be switched off individually.
Cleaning runs locally in your browser.