Free Sound Effects

If you are looking for free sound effects, you have found the right place. In this list of free SFX resources, we have collected completely free sounds that you can use in your videos and podcasts. The majority of the sound effects listed here can be used in personal and commercial projects for free. Don’t wait – check our list out and start downloading quality sounds.

Featured Free SFX Resources


Mixkit by Envato

Mixkit.co offers over 40 free sound effects. The audio files are royalty-free and can be used without attribution. Mixkit.co is a project by the popular Envato platform (check their other free elements.)


Free SFX on Pond5’s Blog

Pond5 now owns all the free SFX packs from Rocketstock. You can download these two free SFX packs without any signup. Download this 10 Free Glitch SFX pack and this 30 Horror SFX pack. You can use the free SFX in both personal and commercial projects without attribution.

PremiumBeat free music


Free SFX on PremiumBeat.com

PremiumBeat, a popular stock music site, has several free SFX packs that you can download without signing up. Download over 100 free SFX: free footstep foley SFX, free vintage sound effects, free SFX for trailers, free explosion SFX, free sci-fi SFX.

Free SFX and SFX Packs

  • FreeSFX.co.uk: This website provides over 4,000 sounds for use in personal and commercial projects. All the sounds are free, but the site requires to credit the source in return.
  • FreeSound.org: This site aggregates thousands of sounds and audio snippets from numerous contributors. All the sounds are covered by the Creative Commons license, which means you can use the SFX in both personal and commercial projects without attribution.
  • Shutterstock Blog: The popular stock image company has a rich blog, which has several free SFX packs. You can download 50 free cooking SFX, 10 free Christmas SFX, 40 free Foley sound effects.
  • Certain sites may have free SFX samples based on a specific theme. For instance, you can see our list of 200 free Christmas SFX here.
  • Videvo: this popular free video site has a solid section of sound effects. You can download all the sounds marked as FREE and use in your projects.

What are sound effects?

Sound effects or SFX are audio clips recorded for a specific creative point without the use of voice and music. SFX can fall into several categories:

Specialty sounds include sounds that exist in our imagination. These are effects we hear in cartoons, fantasy scenes, sci-fi productions.

Isolated sounds include the sounds of everyday items (bells, honks, phone rings, dogs barking, guns firing).

Foley sounds are important for any film production. Foley is sound replacement or sound recreation. The sound is recreated artificially to use in post-production.

Background sounds provide the subtle ambience of the environment depicted in a scene (theater, church, bus station).

What are sound effect packs?

Whether they are paid or free, SFX packs are collections of various sound effects bundled together. Think of them as a toolkit filled with everything you’d need for your short film or video project. Video editors prefer working with thematic SFX packs because it’s convenient: packs usually offer variety and a good quality of sound.

How to use sound effects

Using free sounds or SFX packs in your project is not too difficult. But you want to be creative about how you add sound effects into the mix. SFX improves the production value of any project – and here is what you can do about it.

Use sounds as transitions

Give your editing an interesting feel by adding audio transitions over your cuts. Swells, swooshes, smashes can do a lot to get the viewer’s dwindling attention back to the screen.

Add suspense

Introduce surprising scenes with a well-synced combo of footage and sound effects. Here is how the introduction of the horror audio element brings it all to a next level.

Save bad footage with SFX

You can even save bad or boring footage with addition of sound. Painting with sound can change the overall perception of the scene.

How to add SFX to your videos

Time needed: 5 minutes

Whether you are editing in Premiere Pro, FCP, or any other video editor, the steps will be the same.

  1. Download free SFX to your device

    Download the free sound effects to your computer and unzip them in a folder.

  2. Import SFX to your video editor

    Add the downloaded sound effects to your video editor.

  3. Place videos in the editor’s timeline.

    Add footage to the timeline. clip after clip.

  4. Place SFX into the timeline.

    Add the SFX to your timeline (audio area).

  5. Position SFX

    Position your sounds to have the biggest impact on the viewer.


If you need more free resources for your video edits, check out our lists of:

Also, check out our curated free SFX collections:

  1. Free Christmas sound effects
  2. Free Halloween sound effects
  3. Free kitchen and cooking sound effects
  4. Free household sound effects
  5. Free epic sound effects for film trailers
  6. Free gardening sound effects
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