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The quietest paper shredders

Written by
· 4 min read

Quietest paper shredder beside a home office desk

The best known quiet shredder brand prints no decibel number anywhere. See which makers do, what their numbers describe, and the quietest cross cut, micro cut and auto feed shredders on paper.

On this page
  1. How we chose
  2. Our picks
  3. How to choose
  4. Comparison
  5. FAQs
  6. Bottom line
  7. Review history

A quick look at the quietest paper shredders

Fellowes trademarks SilentShred, sells several shredders on quiet operation, and prints no decibel figure for any of them on a current page or manual. The brand you would expect to lead a quiet shredder guide is missing from it.

A paper shredder is loud by design, a motor driving steel cutters through a stack of paper, which makes it one of the few home office machines where a published noise figure would really help. The printer beside it is better documented: several printer makers publish an acoustic figure and two name the test standard, as our printer guide shows.

This guide draws on product pages, stores and manuals for twenty shredders from five brands, twelve cross cut and eight micro cut, including one auto feed unit.

Where these figures come from

The sources were product pages, stores and manuals for those twenty shredders and the five brands behind them, plus Fellowes' pages and manuals.

We did not measure any of these shredders. Each shredder's dB figure is HSM's, Bonsaii's or Amazon Basics' wording, and the only stated condition, HSM's idle operation, stays attached to its number.

QuietSpecs' picks of the quietest paper shredders

Prices as of Nov 12. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change.

Lowest published figure

HSM shredstar X12

HSM shredstar X12
  • Noise: About 57 dB(A), idle (maker)
  • Price: $275.24 at Amazon, checked Nov 12
  • Best for: The lowest number, if you accept that it describes an empty machine
  • Skip it if: Knowing how long it runs before it stops is part of your decision

"Noise level (idle operation): ca. 57 dB(A)" is HSM's line for the shredstar X12, the lowest figure in this guide, and no other shredder maker ties its number to a condition.

The condition is the odd part: idle operation is the machine running with nothing in it. A 12 sheet particle cut with a separate CD cutting unit.

Check price at Amazon

Best micro cut

Bonsaii EverShred Pro 4S30

  • Noise: 58 dB, no condition (maker)
  • Price: No maker list price
  • Best for: Long sessions of sensitive paper
  • Skip it if: A figure specific to the machine is what you need

A P-5 micro cut that takes 10 sheets and, unusually for a home unit, runs for "4 hours" continuously, with "Noise: 58dB" on Bonsaii's spec list and a separate CD bin.

There is no price for it on Bonsaii's sites, and the same 58dB appears on every EverShred Pro model, which comes up again below.

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Best budget with a number

Amazon Basics 18-Sheet Cross-Cut Shredder

Amazon Basics 18-Sheet Cross-Cut Shredder
  • Noise: 65 dB, no condition (maker)
  • Price: $108.00 at Amazon, checked Nov 12
  • Best for: A cheap machine that tells you what it does

Two useful lines sit in the product information table for this 18 sheet cross cut: "Audible Noise 65 db" and a real duty cycle, "30 minutes on / 10 minutes off".

No other mainstream budget shredder here prints both a noise figure and a run time, and it costs $108.

Check price at Amazon

Best auto feed

Bonsaii C283-A 200-Sheet AutoFeed

Bonsaii C283-A 200-Sheet AutoFeed
  • Noise: Up to 58 dB, no condition (maker)
  • Price: $349.99 at Amazon, checked Nov 12
  • Best for: Stacks of paper you do not want to stand over
  • Skip it if: You shred a few pages at a time

For the C283-A the spec reads "Noise Level: <=58dB", on an auto feed machine with a 200 sheet tray and a separate 12 sheet manual slot. It runs for "60-minute continuous" and shreds to P-4 micro cut.

A ceiling is not a reading, but an auto feed shredder spends its time running unattended, which is where a ceiling is most useful.

Check price at Amazon

Longest run time with a figure

GBC ShredMaster SX15-06

GBC ShredMaster SX15-06
  • Noise: Below 58 dB, no condition (maker)
  • Price: $319.80 at Amazon, checked Nov 12
  • Best for: A home office that shreds in long sessions

"Whisper Shred Technology operates below 58 dB", runs one line on the SX15-06 page, for a P-4 super cross cut with a "120 minute run time".

Further down, a generic feature blurb on the same page says "operating below 62 dBA", so GBC gives two ceilings for one machine. It was out of stock at GBC when checked.

Check price at Amazon

Best cheap cross cut

Bonsaii EverShred C169-B

Bonsaii EverShred C169-B
  • Noise: 58 dB on one Bonsaii site, 60 on the other (maker)
  • Price: $139.99 at Amazon, checked Nov 12
  • Best for: A cheap cross cut, if you read the bonsaii.com page
  • Skip it if: A maker that agrees with itself matters to you

The C169-B is "Noise: 58 dB" on bonsaii.com and "60dB low-noise operation" on Bonsaii's store, which also disagrees with bonsaii.com on the sheet count, the security level, the run time and the bin size.

A 14 or 15 sheet cross cut at $149.99, depending on which Bonsaii page you believe.

Check price at Amazon

The only published range

Aurora AU1030MB 10-Sheet MicroShred

  • Noise: 58 to 60 dB, no condition (maker)
  • Price: No maker list price
  • Best for: A reader who prefers a range to a promise
  • Skip it if: Capacity comes first

Aurora's "Quiet Operation 58-60 dB" for the AU1030MB is one of only two figures in this guide given as a range rather than a single number or a ceiling.

What moves the figure between the two ends goes unsaid, but a range is a more useful shape than a bare "58dB".

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How to choose

If one you own is already making a noise, start with Paper shredder making loud noise.

How loud are Fellowes SilentShred shredders?

Nobody can say from Fellowes' own documents. Its product pages carry a noise technology tag, SilentShred or QuietOperation, and no decibel figure, and eight current Fellowes manuals have no dB line either. The only Fellowes noise figures to be found on a Fellowes domain are in a manual for the Powershred 480, dated 2005.

That does not make a Fellowes shredder loud.

It means the maker most associated with quiet shredding has not, on any current page that could be found, put a number on it. This site ranks what makers publish, so Fellowes is absent from the table for the same reason Theragun is absent from our massage gun guide.

HSM labels its figure, and the label is idle

Only HSM says what its figure describes: "idle operation", with "ca. 57 dB(A)" for the shredstar X12 and X20 and "ca. 58 dB(A)" for the X10 and X6pro.

Idle is the machine running with nothing in it. It is the quietest state a shredder has. It is also the one state you never buy a shredder for. HSM leads this guide on the number and on disclosure, and the disclosure tells you the number describes the wrong moment.

Nobody else labels the condition:

MakerHow the figure is printed
Bonsaii"Noise: 58dB"
Amazon Basics"Audible Noise 65 db"
GBC"operates below 58 dB"
Aurora"58-60 dB"

None says whether the machine was shredding, how much, or from how far away. Bonsaii's 58 and Amazon Basics' 65 may not describe the same moment or the same distance, and without both, shredder figures from different brands cannot be lined up.

Do all Bonsaii shredders really list 58 dB?

Yes. Every current EverShred Pro model on bonsaii.com, from the 5 sheet unit to the 18 sheet unit, reads "58dB". A 5 sheet motor and an 18 sheet motor producing an identical figure is not impossible, but it reads as a series claim rather than a measurement of each machine, and why the range shares one number is not something Bonsaii explains.

GBC does something similar. Its SX15-06 page says "operates below 58 dB" in the model text and "operating below 62 dBA" in the generic feature blurb further down the same page.

Bonsaii also disagrees with itself across its two sites. The C169-B is "58 dB" on bonsaii.com and "60dB low-noise operation" on bonsaiishop.com, where the same machine also gains a sheet, a security level, ten minutes of run time and half a gallon of bin.

Run time varies more than the decibels

From a "6 minute run time" on GBC's PX10-06 and PSX10-06 to the "4 hours" Bonsaii claims for its 4S30, the spread in run time dwarfs the spread in decibels. Six minutes is short. Between those ends sit the Amazon Basics 18 sheet at "30 minutes on / 10 minutes off", the GBC SX15-06 at 120 minutes and the SX20-08 at 240 minutes. A shredder that has stopped to cool down makes no noise, but that is not what anyone means by quiet. If you shred in batches, the run time will shape your afternoon more than a 2 dB difference will.

Royal, Boxis, WORKPRO and Swingline print nothing usable

Royal posts prices across eleven shredder pages and no noise figure on any of them. Boxis has no specifications on its own site and links to Amazon instead. WORKPRO's site lists no shredders. Swingline's shredder pages now return errors, its range having been folded into GBC, and Rexel is not sold in the US.

The whole GBC home range was out of stock or backordered on gbc.com at the time of checking, which matters for a guide whose readers mostly buy on Amazon.

How the quietest paper shredders compare

ProductNoiseCutSheetsRun timeBinPrice
HSM shredstar X12 (1059113)About 57 dB(A), idle (maker)Particle cut, P-412Not published by HSM6.1 gallons$275.24
Bonsaii 4S3058 dB, no condition (maker)Micro cut, P-5104 hours continuous30 litresNot verified yet
Amazon Basics B07R3FXLLQ65 dB, no condition (maker)Cross cut, P-31830 minutes on, 10 off6 gallons$108.00
Bonsaii C283-AUp to 58 dB, no condition (maker)Micro cut, P-4200 auto feed, 12 manual60 minutes continuous8.1 gallons$349.99
GBC SX15-06Below 58 dB, no condition (maker)Super cross cut, P-415120 minutes6 gallons$319.80
Bonsaii C169-B58 dB on one Bonsaii site, 60 on the other (maker)Cross cut, P-31430 minutes, 10 cool down4.5 gallons$139.99
Aurora AU1030MB58 to 60 dB, no condition (maker)Micro cut, P-510Not published by Aurora7.0 gallonsNot verified yet

Prices as of Nov 12. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change.

Frequently asked questions

What is the quietest paper shredder?

By published figure, the HSM shredstar X12 and X20 at "ca. 57 dB(A)", but HSM labels that figure "idle operation", meaning the machine running with no paper in it. Among figures that at least do not say idle, Bonsaii, GBC and Aurora all publish 58 dB, as a reading, a ceiling and a range respectively.

Why is Fellowes not in the table?

No current Fellowes shredder has a decibel figure we could find. Its product pages carry a noise technology tag such as SilentShred, and eight current manuals have no dB line. The only Fellowes noise figures on a Fellowes site sit in a manual from 2005, and with nothing current published there is nothing to rank.

Can I compare shredder decibel figures between brands?

Not safely. HSM states idle, GBC and Bonsaii's auto feed state a ceiling, Aurora states a range, and everyone else prints a bare number. None gives a distance or a standard.

Is a micro cut shredder louder than a cross cut?

Not on these numbers. Bonsaii's P-5 micro cut 4S30 and its P-3 cross cut C169-B both publish 58 dB, and GBC publishes the same "below 62 Dba" for its cross cut PX10-06 and micro cut PSX10-06. Micro cut buys you security, not a noise penalty that anyone has published.

How much does run time matter?

More than a decibel or two. GBC's PX10-06 and PSX10-06 stop after a "6 minute run time", while the GBC SX15-06 runs 120 minutes and Bonsaii's 4S30 claims "4 hours". A shredder cooling down is silent, which is not the same as quiet.

The bottom line

Ask for a quiet shredder and most people say Fellowes. Fellowes even trademarks SilentShred. Yet I found no decibel figure on any current Fellowes product page or in eight current manuals; the only Fellowes noise figures on a Fellowes site sit in a manual from 2005.

Those who do print a number mostly print it bare. HSM labels its figure, and the label is "idle operation", the one moment a shredder is not shredding. Bonsaii gives every EverShred Pro, 5 sheets to 18, the same "58dB", and gives one machine two numbers on its two websites.

Check the run time before the decibels. Several of these stop after six minutes.

Stanley Alu, founder and editor

What we also considered

These are worth knowing about, and why they didn't make the list.

How we reviewed this article

Every statement here comes from the 5 maker documents, standards and agency pages listed under Sources, quoted where the wording matters. We did not measure, inspect or repair anything ourselves. Each substantive revision is dated below. How we work

  1. Current version

    First published, written by Stanley Alu.

Sources

Manufacturer pages and manuals for every product

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