How to add subtitles and captions on YouTube

Captions let deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers follow your videos, and subtitles reach people who speak another language. You can add them during upload or afterwards:

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. Select Subtitles in the left menu.
3. Choose the video.
4. Click Add language and select the language.
5. Under Subtitles, click Add.
6. Choose Upload file, Auto-sync or Type manually, and follow the prompts.

Source: YouTube Help: Add subtitles & captions, checked 15 October 2026

YouTube offers three ways to add your own captions, plus automatic captions. When you type captions yourself, YouTube suggests adding sounds such as [applause] so viewers know what's happening.

Sources: YouTube Help: Add subtitles & captions, checked 15 October 2026; YouTube Help: Use automatic captioning, checked 15 October 2026

If you're new to caption files, YouTube recommends SubRip (.srt) or SubViewer (.sbv). They need only basic timing and can be edited in any plain text editor. Use the advanced formats only if you need styling or positioning.

1. In the captions options, select Upload file.
2. Choose With timing or Without timing, then select Continue.
3. Choose the file.
4. Select Save.

Sources: YouTube Help: Supported subtitle and closed caption files, checked 15 October 2026; YouTube Help: Add subtitles & captions, checked 15 October 2026

Automatic captions are available in dozens of languages, including English, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish. They may not be ready the moment you upload, since processing time depends on the audio. YouTube warns they can misrepresent speech because of accents, dialects or background noise, so check product names and numbers in particular.

1. In YouTube Studio, select Subtitles and click the video.
2. In the Subtitles column, select Edit for the language.
3. For automatic captions, select Duplicate and edit. YouTube creates a new track with your changes.
4. Click any line to fix the text, or change the two timestamp boxes beside it to adjust timing. If you can't see timestamps, select Edit timings.
5. Click Publish.

Sources: YouTube Help: Use automatic captioning, checked 15 October 2026; YouTube Help: Edit or remove captions, checked 15 October 2026

YouTube lists these reasons a video may not get automatic captions:

1. Wait and check again later if the video was only just uploaded.
2. If it still has none, add your own captions with Upload file, Auto-sync or Type manually.
3. To remove a caption track, open Subtitles, select Options, then Delete for that language, and confirm with Delete captions.

• The audio is complex and the captions are still processing.
• The language isn't supported, or the video is too long.
• The sound quality is poor or YouTube doesn't recognise the speech.
• There's a long silence at the start of the video.
• Several people speak over each other, or several languages are spoken at once.
• On live streams, automatic captions are English only, need normal latency, and are rolling out to channels with more than 1,000 subscribers.

Sources: YouTube Help: Use automatic captioning, checked 15 October 2026; YouTube Help: Edit or remove captions, checked 15 October 2026

Captions are added in YouTube Studio once a video is up. Zolyp, which publishes this guide, publishes to YouTube as one of 9 platforms (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads). It creates video uploads and Shorts with titles and descriptions written for search, can set a custom thumbnail on a standard video, and schedules them with the posts on your other networks. You approve the week before anything goes live.