Free Passive Voice Checker
Paste your writing to highlight sentences in the passive voice, like "the report was written by the team", and see what share of your text is passive.
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Runs in your browser. Your text isn't uploaded or stored.
How to use the free passive voice checker
- 01
Paste your text.
- 02
Review each highlighted sentence and the passive phrase in it.
- 03
Rewrite the ones that read better active: put the person or thing doing the action first.
What is passive voice, and should you avoid it?
In the passive voice, the subject receives the action: "The email was sent by Sarah." In the active voice, the subject does it: "Sarah sent the email." Active sentences are shorter, clearer and more direct, which is why most style guides, and SEO plugins like Yoast, suggest keeping passive voice under 10% of sentences.
Passive voice isn't wrong. It's useful when the doer is unknown or unimportant ("The store was founded in 1984"). Use the checker to find passive sentences, then keep the ones that work.
Tips for using the passive voice checker
Find the doer
Ask who performed the action, then make them the subject: "The bug was fixed by Sam" becomes "Sam fixed the bug".
Keep passive where it fits
When the doer is unknown or unimportant, passive reads better: "The store was founded in 1984."
Watch for hidden passives
"Get" passives count too: "the post got shared". The checker flags those as well.
Check the result
Rewriting passive sentences usually shortens them. Run the text through the readability checker afterwards.
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Passive Voice Checker FAQ
How accurate is the passive voice detection?
It looks for a form of "to be" or "get" followed by a past participle, which catches nearly all passive sentences. It can flag the odd adjective ("is tired"), so read each result before rewriting.
How much passive voice is too much?
Under 10% of sentences is the usual guideline for web writing. Scientific and legal writing use more by convention.
Is my text uploaded?
No. The check runs in your browser.
Is passive voice bad for SEO?
Not as a ranking factor, but SEO plugins like Yoast flag it because active sentences are clearer and easier to scan.
What's an example of passive voice?
"The cake was eaten by the kids" is passive; "The kids ate the cake" is active.
Can a sentence be passive without "by"?
Yes. "The window was broken" is passive even though it doesn't say who broke it.
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