subclean

In the eventuality that you are using media servers like Sonarr or Radarr for grabbing media, then there is a good chance that you are also using the companion app dubbed Bazarr. While the latter is excellent in grabbing subtitles for movies and TV shows, sadly files can incorporate various ads, which can ruin your viewing experience.

Subclean is a command line tool designed to address this precise problem, namely, it removes the ads from the subtitle files downloaded via Bazarr.

Although it is a console tool, you don’t necessarily need to use it via commands, because you can add it in the post-processing configuration or Bazarr. The app doesn’t just remove ads from files, but it also lets you customize the cleaning process via the numerous options available.

More precisely, you have input and output control and specify if you want a new file or to simply overwrite the existing subtitles. You can also opt to delete the input file before writing the cleanup output.

More importantly, it allows you to batch process all files at once via the -sweep command, and you can even specify how many subdirectories to dig into. The option can be applied to multiple folders and subfolders, and it will overwrite the input file automatically. If you want to save the original file, then you will need to create a backup somewhere else.

Subclean is a specialized tool that can come in handy to you if you are using Bazarr as the main place to grab subs for your favorite movies, documentaries and TV shows. Simply put, the app works hand in hand with Bazarr, so you could configure it to include the cleaning post-processing. Considering that it supports batch processing, it means that you can save a lot of time and effort in the long run.