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How to Watch YouTube with Misophonia: A Practical Guide

By Ange Ndoudi · · 7 min read

Watching YouTube with misophonia gets easier when you combine three things: YouTube's own settings to see fewer triggering videos, captions and transcripts to follow a video without its sound, and a tool that reduces the mouth sounds in the audio itself. Headphones don't help here, and YouTube has no setting that filters out mouth sounds, so it's worth knowing what each option can and can't do.

I have misophonia, and mouth sounds in YouTube videos are my hardest trigger. These are the options I know of, from the simplest to the most effective.

Why mouth sounds in videos are so hard to escape

Mouth sounds are among the most common misophonia triggers: in a large clinical study, 96% of people with misophonia were triggered by eating sounds (Jager et al., 2020). Videos make them harder to avoid than in real life. You can't ask the person to stop, the sound often comes through headphones straight into your ears, and it's frequently a creator you actually want to watch.

Audio engineers know the problem well: one audio trade publication refers to "the very common issue of mouth clicks" in dialogue recordings (Production Expert), and professional software exists specifically to remove them. Plenty of videos simply aren't edited that carefully.

1. Follow the video with captions or the transcript

The simplest workaround is to turn the sound down or off and read along.

  • Captions: "To turn on captions, click Closed captions" in the player. You can also change their font, size and background in Settings, then Subtitles/CC (YouTube Help).
  • Automatic captions: many videos have captions generated by speech recognition. YouTube notes that "the quality of the captions may vary" (YouTube Help).
  • Transcript: "In the video description, click Show transcript." The transcript scrolls with the video, and you can "click any line of caption text to jump to that part of the video" (YouTube Help).

The transcript is underrated for misophonia: you can skim a long video, jump to the part you need, and listen only when you choose to.

The cost: you lose the voice, the tone and the jokes. It works for tutorials and news, much less for content you watch to relax.

2. Teach YouTube to show you fewer triggering videos

If eating videos, mukbangs or mouth-sound ASMR keep appearing in your recommendations, you can push back.

  • Not interested: next to a video's title, click More, then "Not interested". You can add "I don't like the video" to refine it.
  • Don't recommend channel: on a video from that channel, click More, then "Don't recommend channel".

YouTube confirms that this "feedback may be used to tune your recommendations" (YouTube Help).

  • Watch history: if you watched a triggering video by accident, delete it from your history. "If you delete some or all of your watch history, YouTube won't base future video recommendations on that content" (YouTube Help).

ASMR deserves a special mention. Some ASMR videos are built around mouth and eating sounds that some people find relaxing and others find unbearable. Research has even found that people who experience ASMR tend to report more misophonia, and that eating sounds are among the sounds some ASMR fans find unpleasant too (Janik McErlean & Banissy, PeerJ, 2018). I explain this strange overlap in misophonia and ASMR.

3. Know what YouTube's volume features do (and don't)

YouTube has two audio settings that sound promising but aren't designed for mouth sounds:

  • Stable Volume, on by default, "balances the range between quiet and loud, continuously adjusting volume levels to reduce variations in sound".
  • Voice boost "makes it easier to hear dialogue by reducing background sounds and highlighting vocals" (YouTube Help).

Mouth sounds are produced by the speaker, so they are part of the voice, not background noise. Neither feature is described as reducing them. I wouldn't count on either one.

4. Skip, scrub and lower the volume

The workarounds most of us end up using:

  • skipping ahead a few seconds each time it happens;
  • keeping your finger on the volume key;
  • watching at a lower volume than you'd like.

They work, but they keep you on alert for the whole video, which is tiring and makes it hard to enjoy anything.

5. Tell the creator, kindly

Many creators have no idea their audio has mouth noise, and the fix exists on their side. iZotope's audio repair software, for example, has a tool that "detects and reduces mouth noises such as clicks and lip smacks" (iZotope RX documentation).

A short, friendly comment or message can go a long way, for example:

I love your videos. I have misophonia, and the mouth clicks in the audio make them hard for me to watch. A mouth de-click filter in editing would make a big difference. Thanks for considering it!

Not every creator will change their workflow, but some do, and it helps everyone with misophonia who watches them.

6. Reduce the mouth sounds in the audio itself

All the options above work around the problem. The only way to keep watching normally is to change the audio before it reaches your ears.

That's why I built CalmEar. It's a Chrome extension that detects mouth smacks and lip smacking in YouTube videos and reduces them as the video plays, while the rest of the audio stays as it is. The processing happens on your computer, and the audio is never uploaded.

Its limits, honestly:

  • it works on YouTube, in Chrome on a computer;
  • it reduces mouth sounds rather than erasing every one, so some can still get through, especially over loud speech or music.

You can hear a before and after example on the homepage.

What about headphones?

Noise cancelling headphones block sounds around you, not sounds inside the video. In this situation they deliver the trigger more clearly. I go into the details in my guide to noise cancelling headphones for misophonia.

Summary

Option What it does Limit
Captions or transcript Lets you follow a video with the sound off You lose the voice and tone
Not interested, Don't recommend channel Fewer triggering videos in your feed Doesn't help with creators you want to watch
Stable Volume, Voice boost Even out loudness, highlight dialogue Not designed to reduce mouth sounds
Skipping and volume Avoids the worst moments Keeps you on alert
Asking the creator Can fix the audio at the source Depends on the creator
A mouth sound filter like CalmEar Reduces mouth sounds as you watch YouTube in Chrome on a computer; may not catch every sound

Frequently asked questions

Can YouTube filter out mouth sounds?

Not as far as YouTube's help pages describe. Its audio settings, Stable Volume and Voice boost, even out loudness and highlight dialogue. They aren't presented as a way to remove mouth sounds, which are part of the speaker's voice.

Why do mouth sounds in YouTube videos bother me so much?

Mouth and eating sounds are the most common misophonia triggers, and videos often deliver them close up, through headphones, from people you can't ask to stop. If chewing and mouth sounds affect you strongly, I explain more in why do chewing sounds bother me so much?

Is there a browser extension that removes mouth sounds from YouTube?

Yes. CalmEar is a Chrome extension that detects mouth smacks and lip smacking in YouTube videos and reduces them as the video plays. It works on computers, not on phones or TVs.

Do captions help with misophonia?

They let you follow a video with the sound off or very low, which avoids the trigger entirely. They work best for videos you watch for information rather than for the voice.

Sources

This article shares personal experience and general information. It isn't medical advice: if sounds affect your daily life, a doctor, audiologist or therapist familiar with misophonia can help.

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