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Add auto-captions to a video with AI
Captions are the edit most videos need and the one creators skip because typing them by hand is miserable. AI captioning listens to the speech, writes the text and times it to the words. Here is the whole flow, plus the honest limits of machine ears.
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Step by step
- Upload the video — a clip, a lesson, a podcast recording, anything with speech in it.
- Run the caption generation: the speech is transcribed and the text is timed to when each line is spoken.
- Pick a caption style — classic, bold pop or minimal — sized for where the video will play.
- Choose the output: captions burned into the video for social platforms, or a separate caption file (SRT/VTT) for players that load their own.
- Download the finished video. Your footage is deleted from the server as soon as the download completes.
Tips from people who do this a lot
- Clear speech captions well; music, crowd noise and overlapping talkers are where machine captions stumble — check names and numbers before publishing.
- Short lines read better: captions are read at speaking pace, so dense paragraphs on screen help nobody.
- For quiet or whispered recordings, normalising the audio first gives the captioner a much cleaner signal to hear.
FAQ
How accurate are AI captions?
On clear, single-speaker audio they are strong; on noisy, accented or overlapping speech they make mistakes, proper nouns first. Treat the output as a fast first draft and proof-read the lines that matter.
Should I burn captions in or use a caption file?
Burn them in for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, where viewers watch muted and players vary. Use a caption file (SRT or VTT) for YouTube uploads and anywhere the viewer should be able to switch captions off.
What happens to my video afterwards?
It is processed in a temporary workspace and deleted immediately when your download finishes. Nothing is kept, and there is no account holding a copy.
Is this really free?
Yes — every tool on this site is free. A short ad before your download is what pays the server bills, so nothing needs a paywall or an account.