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Passive Voice Detector
Paste any text and instantly highlight likely passive-voice sentences, with each flagged sentence listed separately for a fast editing pass.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
Example shown. Flags "to be" verbs followed by a past participle — a common heuristic, not a full grammatical parser.
How the Passive Voice Detector works
- Paste or type any text into the box.
- The tool splits it into sentences and scans each one for a "to be" verb followed by a likely past participle.
- Matches are highlighted in the text, and every flagged sentence is listed separately below for a quick review pass.
The pattern it looks for
Classic passive voice follows the shape "[subject] + [to be] + [past participle]," as in "the ball was thrown" rather than "he threw the ball." This tool's regular expression targets exactly that shape, which covers the large majority of passive sentences in everyday writing.
FAQ
How does it detect passive voice?
It looks for a "to be" verb (is, was, were, been, being, etc.) followed by a word ending in a common past-participle pattern like -ed or -en, optionally with an adverb in between ("was quickly written"). This catches most textbook passive constructions.
Will it flag false positives?
Yes, occasionally. Words like "interested" or "excited" that describe a state rather than an action can trigger the same pattern even in an active sentence. Treat every highlight as a suggestion to re-read that sentence, not an automatic error.
Why does passive voice matter for writing?
Passive voice isn't wrong, but overusing it can make writing feel vague or evasive by hiding who performed the action ("mistakes were made" vs. "we made mistakes"). Active voice is usually more direct and easier to read.
How we compare
| Feature | Online Tool Store | Full grammar checker | Manual proofreading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instant, no account | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Deep grammatical parsing | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
Use this as a quick first pass to spot obvious passive constructions; use your own judgment (or a full grammar checker) for edge cases and stylistic exceptions.