Turn Off Audio on a Layer in After Effects

This tutorial teaches you how to turn off the audio on a layer in After Effects in one click.

Using the Speaker Icon to Turn Off Audio on a Layer in AE

You can turn off the audio on any layer by clicking the little speaker icon on the layer. Find the layer in the Timeline panel. All the way on the left side near the layer’s name there should be a small speaker icon. Click it to turn off the audio on that layer. If you click the now empty space in the speaker column, the audio will be turned back on.

Layer in After Effects with audio turned on about to be turned off
Click the speaker icon on the layer to turn the audio off.

If you select multiple layers, when you click the speaker icon the audio will turn off for all the selected layers. Repeat the same process to turn the audio back on for the selected layers if needed.

Please note that if a layer does not have any audio on it then you won’t be able to click in this area to turn audio on or off. It’s just empty. See the image below for an example in the top layer compared to the two layers beneath it.

Three layers in After Effects with two containing audio and one not having audio
Layer 1 does not have any audio so you can’t turn the audio on or off

New to audio in After Effects? Learn how to raise or lower the volume of a clip here.


If you’ve read this tutorial and you still can’t figure it out, please leave a comment and I’ll do what I can to help troubleshoot it. But if you can now turn off audio on a layer in After Effects, I hope you stick around and check out some of the other After Effects tutorials on my website or consider signing up to get notified about new blog posts and happenings around EVF.

– Josh

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