Find passive voice and turn it into active sentences
This passive voice checker highlights every passive construction in your text — was thrown, is being replaced, have been repaired, got lost — and tells you whether the sentence names who did the action. When it does (“The ball was thrown by John”), you get an active rewrite: “John threw the ball.”
Passive voice is not a grammar mistake, but too much of it makes writing slow, vague and harder to follow, because the reader has to wait to learn who acted — or never finds out. Style guides for plain English, science writing, journalism and business ask writers to prefer the active voice. Students, editors, report writers and anyone revising a draft can use this tool to see where the passives are and decide which to keep.
The analysis runs in your browser, so your text stays on your device.
How to use the Passive Voice Checker
- Paste your text into Your text, leaving a blank line between paragraphs.
- Read the total and the share of sentences with a passive at the top.
- Scan the Highlighted text: blue marks passives with an agent, amber marks passives with no agent, and dashed outlines mark adjective-like uses such as “was tired”.
- Use the Passives and suggested rewrites table to see each passive, its agent and a suggested active sentence.
- Check By paragraph to find the paragraphs that lean hardest on the passive, then press Copy rewrites or Download CSV.
Passive Voice Checker features
Real passive patterns
Any form of be (am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being) or get, up to two adverbs (“was quickly opened”), then a past participle — regular -ed forms or about 120 irregular verbs (thrown, written, made).
Agent detection
Finds the “by …” phrase that names the doer, and ignores look-alikes such as “by now”, “by car” or “by Monday”.
Active rewrites
Builds the active sentence in the right tense — past, present, perfect, progressive or with a modal (“will be reviewed by the board” → “the board will review”) — with pronouns swapped (“by them” → “they”).
Adjective-like uses
Phrases such as “is located”, “was tired” or “are interested” usually describe a state, so they are shown but not counted unless you choose to.
Per-paragraph stats
Sentences, passives and the percentage of sentences with a passive for every paragraph.
Passive and active voice side by side
| Passive | Active | Tense |
|---|---|---|
| The ball was thrown by John. | John threw the ball. | Past simple |
| The report is written by the team. | The team writes the report. | Present simple |
| The house has been painted by them. | They have painted the house. | Present perfect |
| The cake is being baked by Mia. | Mia is baking the cake. | Present progressive |
| The plan will be reviewed by the board. | The board will review the plan. | Future (modal) |
| Mistakes were made. | (Who made them? Say so.) | No agent |
When the passive is the better choice
Keep a passive when the doer is unknown or unimportant (“The museum was built in 1902”), when the thing acted on is the topic of your paragraph, or in methods sections where the procedure matters more than the person (“Samples were stored at 4 °C”). A useful target for general writing is fewer than one sentence in ten with a passive.
Watch for passives that hide responsibility. “Mistakes were made” and “The decision was taken” are grammatically fine but leave the reader asking who. Agentless passives are flagged separately for that reason.
- Rewrites are mechanical: check the verb tense and agreement and adjust word order if the sentence has extra clauses.
- For other ways to tighten a draft, run it through the Filler Word Finder and the Sentence Length Analyzer.
Passive Voice Checker FAQ
How do I know if a sentence is in the passive voice?
Look for a form of “to be” (or “get”) followed by a past participle: was eaten, is made, has been sent. A quick test: if you can add “by someone” after the verb and the sentence still makes sense, it is passive.
Can this passive voice checker convert passive to active automatically?
When the sentence includes the agent (“by John”), the tool suggests the active version. When there is no agent, it cannot know who acted, so it asks you to add one.
Why is “The office is located in Pune” not counted?
Participles such as located, tired or married usually act as adjectives describing a state. They are highlighted with a dashed outline and you can include them in the count with the checkbox.
Is passive voice wrong?
No. It is a normal part of English. The aim is to use it on purpose, not by habit.
Does it catch every passive?
It catches the standard patterns. Unusual irregular verbs not in the list, very long gaps between “be” and the participle, and reduced passives (“the book written by her”) can be missed.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Everything is analysed in your browser.