What the Passive Voice Detector does
This detector highlights passive-voice constructions in English text - a form of "be" or "get" followed by a past participle, as in "the alarm was triggered" or "the cake got eaten" - including irregular verbs, progressive and perfect passives, and passives after modal verbs. For each one it shows who did the action when the sentence says so, and gives an active-voice pattern to rewrite from.
It also reports the share of sentences that contain a passive, so you can compare a draft with the level your style guide or editor expects. It is a transparent rule-based check that runs as you type in your browser, and it tells you which hits are only possible passives rather than pretending to certainty.
How to use it
- Paste your text. Likely passives are highlighted in orange straight away; possible ones are underlined with a dashed line.
- Set the share of passive sentences you are happy with. The figure is an editorial choice: 10% suits most general writing, while a scientific methods section is often mostly passive by convention.
- Work through the table. Each row gives the passive phrase, the actor if the sentence names one (the "by ..." phrase) and an active pattern such as "[Who?] called the fire service".
- Decide case by case. Where the actor matters, name it and rewrite actively; where it genuinely does not, or is unknown, the passive may be the right choice.
- Untick "Also show possible passives" to hide participles that are usually adjectives, such as "tired", "closed" or "relieved", then download the CSV or print the list for review.
Reading the results
A likely passive is a form of BE or GET, up to two adverbs such as "not" or "quarterly", then a past participle - a regular -ed form or one of about 130 irregular ones such as "written", "built" or "paid".
A possible passive uses a participle that is more often an adjective: "She was tired" describes a state rather than an action. If the sentence names an actor ("tired by the long walk"), it is counted as likely. Possible hits do not count towards the percentage.
The active pattern puts the actor first. When the sentence does not say who acted, it shows [Who?] - often the most useful prompt, because an unnamed actor is exactly what readers of reports and policies ask about. When the tense needs a base form the page cannot derive safely, such as "will [base form of introduced]", it says so rather than guessing.
Worked example: an incident report written almost entirely in the passive
Load the incident report. It has 8 sentences and the detector finds 12 passive constructions: 11 likely and 1 possible. Seven of the eight sentences contain a likely passive, so the share is 7 / 8 = 88% - far above a 10% target.
Only two of the passives name their actor. "The alarm was triggered by a faulty sensor" becomes "A faulty sensor triggered the alarm", and "New checks will be introduced by the facilities team" becomes "The facilities team will introduce new checks". The other nine hide who acted: who evacuated the building, who last tested the sensor, who found that the test had been recorded but not carried out?
"Staff were relieved" is flagged only as possible, because "relieved" here describes how staff felt. The one active sentence, "Engineers replaced the sensor the same afternoon", is also the clearest in the report.
When the passive is the right choice
Plain-language guides advise the active voice for most sentences because it is shorter and says who does what. They do not ban the passive. It is useful when the actor is unknown or irrelevant ("The window was broken overnight"), when the thing acted on is the topic ("Your application has been approved"), and in scientific methods, where the procedure matters more than the person who carried it out.
Overuse is the problem, especially agentless passives in reports and policies. "Mistakes were made" is grammatical and complete, and it avoids saying whose mistakes they were. The [Who?] prompts in the table exist to make that visible.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- It is a pattern check, not a grammatical parser. It will miss some passives - for example a participle separated from its auxiliary by a long phrase - and it can flag phrases such as "is based" or "is closed" that read as descriptions.
- It checks English only. Other languages form the passive differently.
- Active patterns are prompts, not finished sentences: word order, tense and agreement need a human edit, and for modal and present-tense passives the page asks for the base form instead of guessing it.
- The target percentage is an editorial preference. There is no official maximum share of passive sentences.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
Frequently asked questions
How do I spot the passive voice?
Look for a form of "to be" (is, was, were, been, being) or "get" followed by a past participle, such as "was written" or "got paid". A quick test: if you can add "by zombies" after the verb and the sentence still makes sense, it is passive.
Is passive voice grammatically wrong?
No. It is fully correct English. Style guides discourage overusing it because active sentences are usually shorter and clearer about who does what, but the passive is the better choice when the actor is unknown, unimportant, or when you want to keep the focus on the thing affected.
What percentage of passive voice is acceptable?
There is no official limit. Many editors aim for no more than about one sentence in ten in general writing, which is this page's default. Legal, technical and scientific writing often runs higher by convention, so set the target to match your style guide.
Why is "she was tired" only a possible passive?
Because "tired" there is an adjective describing her state, not an action someone did to her. The page keeps a list of participles that usually work as adjectives and marks them as possible unless an actor is named, and possible hits do not count towards the percentage.
Does "has been" always mean the passive?
Only when a past participle follows, as in "has been approved". "She has been here" is active: "been" is just the verb "to be". The detector requires a participle after the auxiliary, so "has been here" is not flagged.
Can it rewrite my passive sentences automatically?
It gives an active pattern for each one - actor, verb and object in active order - but it does not replace your text. Turning a pattern into a good sentence needs judgement about tense, emphasis and who the actor really is.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
