How to add closed captions to YouTube videos
YouTube writes automatic captions for most videos, but they arrive late, have no punctuation in places, and get names and numbers wrong. Uploading your own closed captions fixes all of that. Viewers get accurate words, deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers can follow along, and YouTube gets a clean transcript of what your video is about. This guide shows the three ways to add captions in YouTube Studio and how to make a caption file for free.
The three options in YouTube Studio
- Fix YouTube's automatic captions. Free and built in, but slow to appear (sometimes hours after upload) and you have to correct them inside YouTube's small editor.
- Upload a caption file (SRT or VTT). The best option for most creators: you make accurate captions once, upload them in seconds, and can reuse the same file on Vimeo, Facebook or your website.
- Burn captions into the video. The words become part of the picture. Right for Shorts, where viewers expect bold animated captions, but for long videos it means people cannot turn them off.
Many creators do two: burned-in animated captions on Shorts, and an uploaded SRT on long videos.
Step 1: make an accurate SRT file
- Open the free Caption studio and add your finished video, the same cut you will upload.
- Pick the spoken language and press Generate captions. The AI writes and times every line.
- Play the video through once. Fix names, brand names, numbers and anything the AI misheard. Add sound labels like [music] or [applause] where they matter.
- Open Export and download SRT.
An SRT file is plain text: a number, a start and end time, and the words. You can open it in any text editor to make last changes.
Step 2: upload it in YouTube Studio
- Go to YouTube Studio and click Content in the left menu.
- Click the video, then open Subtitles.
- If asked, set the video language (for example English (United States)).
- Next to the language, click Add, then choose Upload file.
- Pick With timing, select your SRT file and click Continue.
- Check the preview and click Publish.
The captions are live in a minute or two. Viewers see them when they press CC, and you can unpublish YouTube's automatic track so only yours is offered. You can also add captions during upload, on the Video elements step.
Add a second language
On the Subtitles page, click Add language, pick for example Spanish or French, and upload a second SRT. To make one:
- If you speak the second language in another video, generate captions in that language as normal.
- If your video is in Spanish or French and you want English subtitles, choose English (translate) under Captions in, and the AI writes English from the speech.
- To go from English to another language, export the English SRT and translate the text, keeping the numbers and times untouched.
Canadian creators publishing in English and French can follow our bilingual subtitles guide.
Caption quality checklist
- Each caption is one or two lines, about 32 to 42 characters per line.
- A caption stays on screen for at least one second and no more than about seven.
- Captions match what is said, including words like "um" only when they matter to the meaning.
- Speaker changes are clear, for example with a dash or the speaker's name in a two-person interview.
- Important sounds are described: [phone rings], [crowd cheers], [music stops].
Our caption accessibility checklist explains each rule.
Do captions help YouTube SEO?
YouTube has its own automatic transcript, so captions are not a magic ranking boost. But accurate captions help in ways that add up: viewers who watch on mute stay longer, people in other countries can follow with auto-translate (which works much better from accurate captions), and your exact keywords are spelled correctly instead of misheard. You can also paste the transcript into your description or a blog post, which search engines read directly.
Common problems
"The captions are out of sync." You probably trimmed the video after making the captions. Make the SRT from the exact final upload.
"Strange characters appear." Save the SRT as UTF-8 in your text editor. BolCaps exports UTF-8 by default.
"YouTube rejected the file." Check that the file ends in .srt and that every caption has a number, a time line and text, with a blank line between captions.
Free tools for this
- Free closed caption generator
- Free SRT subtitle generator
- Spanish subtitle generator
- French subtitle generator
More guides
- Video caption accessibility checklist
A practical checklist for accessible video captions: accuracy, timing, sound labels, speaker IDs, readable styling and transcripts, with what WCAG, ADA and AODA expect in plain English.
- English and French subtitles for Canadian videos
How to publish a video in Canada with both English and French subtitles: make both SRT files free, upload them to YouTube, Vimeo or your site, and style burned-in captions for social media.
- How to add Urdu captions to Reels, Shorts and TikTok
A step by step guide to Urdu captions for Reels, Shorts and TikTok: Urdu script or Roman Urdu, Nastaliq fonts, line length, timing, placement and how to fix mistakes.
- YouTube reused content policy, explained simply
What YouTube means by reused and inauthentic content, which kinds of Shorts and compilations get rejected from the Partner Program, and how to add enough of your own value to stay monetized.