How-to
How to add subtitles to a video
Adding subtitles used to mean an editing timeline, a transcript you typed yourself, and an export you had to babysit. This walks through doing it in a browser instead, and through the handful of decisions that actually change how the finished video looks.
The short version
Add the video
Upload an MP4, MOV, AVI, or MKV file up to 500 MB, or paste a link from a supported source.
Pick the subtitle language
Choose any of the 30 available languages. Speech recognition writes down what was said, then the transcript is translated.
Check the text
Read through the subtitles before you commit. Names, product terms, and numbers are where machine transcription is most likely to slip.
Download
You get an MP4 with the subtitles burned into the picture, plus SRT and TXT files for both languages.
Decide first: burned in or a separate file
This is the one choice that is hard to reverse, so it is worth making deliberately. See burned-in vs soft subtitles for the full comparison.
- Burned in means the text is part of the picture. It plays the same everywhere, cannot be switched off, and is what social feeds need because most of them do not read subtitle files at all.
- A separate SRT means the player draws the text. Viewers can turn it off or switch languages, and search engines can read it, but every player styles it differently and some ignore it entirely.
- You do not have to choose one. Every job here returns both, so you can post the burned-in MP4 and still keep the SRT for a platform that wants one.
What you need before you start
- A video with audible speech. Heavy background music over quiet dialogue is the usual cause of a poor transcript.
- A file under 500 MB, or a link from a supported source. Long recordings are worth trimming first, since you are charged by length.
- A decision about the target language. You can run the same video more than once if you want several.
Getting a transcript worth translating
Translation quality is capped by transcription quality: within a job, a mis-heard word is translated as the wrong word. Each language you run is a separate job that transcribes the audio again, so corrections do not carry from one run to the next. Clean audio is the one change that improves every language at once.
- Proper nouns are the weak point. People, companies, and product names have no context to fall back on, so check them first.
- Numbers, dates, and units get transcribed by sound. Fifteen and fifty are the classic pair.
- Jargon and acronyms specific to your field are worth a scan, especially if you say them quickly.
- Crosstalk between speakers produces the messiest lines. If two people talk over each other, expect to rewrite that section.
Common problems and what causes them
| Text runs off the edge of the frame | Line is too long for the video width. Split it into two shorter lines; see subtitle formatting rules. |
|---|---|
| Subtitles feel rushed | Too many characters on screen for too little time. Reading speed, not word count, is the limit. |
| Accents or non-Latin letters show as boxes | The font in the player does not cover the script. Burning in avoids this, because the glyphs become pixels. |
| Subtitles drift out of sync partway through | Usually a variable frame rate source. Re-encoding to a constant frame rate before subtitling fixes it. |
| Wrong words in a specific section | Background noise or overlapping speech in that stretch of audio. Fix it in the editor rather than re-running the job. |
Adding subtitles in another language
If the point is reach rather than accessibility, you are translating as well as transcribing. That adds decisions a transcript does not have: how formal to be, how to handle names, and how much longer the translated line will run. Each language page covers what changes for that specific language.
Try it on a real video. You get 50 free credits, which is about ten minutes of footage, and no card is needed.
Continue with Google50 free credits. No credit card needed.Frequently asked questions
Can I add subtitles to a video without editing software?
Yes. Everything happens in the browser: you upload the file, choose a language, and download the finished MP4. There is nothing to install and no timeline to learn.
How long does adding subtitles take?
It depends on how long the clip is and how busy the service is. Progress is shown for each stage, so you can see whether it is transcribing, translating, or burning in.
Can I add subtitles to a video in a language I do not speak?
Yes. The speech is transcribed in whatever language it was spoken, so you do not have to identify the source language yourself. You only pick the language you want out.
Do the subtitles stay if I re-upload the video somewhere else?
Burned-in subtitles are part of the picture, so they survive any re-upload, re-encode, or download. A separate SRT file does not travel with the video unless you upload it too.
What file types can I upload?
MP4, MOV, AVI, and MKV, up to 500 MB per file. You can also paste a link from a supported source instead of uploading.