Free tool
Add subtitles to video
To add subtitles to video, bring the video and its SRT, VTT, SBV or ASS file. Burn them in, and every caption is drawn into the picture so it shows in any player and on any site; or add them as a track that viewers can switch on.
- Free
- Preview before you burn
- Nothing is uploaded
1. The video
Drop your video here, or Choose your video
MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV, up to 2 GB and 3 hours. Everything happens in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
2. The subtitles
SRT, VTT, SBV or ASS. No subtitles yet? Make them from the video with the subtitle generator.
How it works
How do you add subtitles to a video?
Choose the video, then the subtitle file. Pick Burned in or Subtitle track; for burned-in captions, choose a size, a dark box or an outline, and the top or bottom of the frame, and check a caption in the preview. Then press the button and download the new video.
- 1
Add the video and the subtitles
Drop both on the box together, or choose each one. The subtitle file can be SRT, VTT, SBV or ASS; to add captions to video, it’s the same.
- 2
Choose how they appear
Burned in: size, look and position, with a preview of any caption. As a track: MP4 or MKV, and the language.
- 3
Make the video
Burning in re-encodes the picture, which takes a while; adding a track copies it and takes seconds.
Should you burn subtitles in or add them as a track?
Burn them in when the video will be posted or sent and the captions must show everywhere. Add a track when viewers should be able to turn them off, or choose a language. A track only shows in players that read one; burned-in text can’t be turned off.
- Shows on social sites and in chat apps
- Burned inYes, always
- Subtitle trackUsually not
- Can be turned off
- Burned inNo
- Subtitle trackYes
- Picture re-encoded
- Burned inYes
- Subtitle trackNo, copied
- Time to make
- Burned inA share of the video’s length
- Subtitle trackSeconds
- Formats
- Burned inMP4, MOV, WebM
- Subtitle trackMP4, MKV
| Burned in | Subtitle track | |
|---|---|---|
| Shows on social sites and in chat apps | Yes, always | Usually not |
| Can be turned off | No | Yes |
| Picture re-encoded | Yes | No, copied |
| Time to make | A share of the video’s length | Seconds |
| Formats | MP4, MOV, WebM | MP4, MKV |
Does the video’s format change anything?
A little: each container takes subtitles its own way. The pages below set the tool up for one format and say what’s special about it.
How are long lines and two-line captions handled?
A caption keeps the line breaks its file gives it. When a line is too wide for the frame, it’s laid out again as two balanced lines, breaking between words, and wrapped further only if it still doesn’t fit. A very long caption gets smaller rather than covering the picture.
Our test included a single 133-character line, which became two even lines on a 640-pixel-wide video, and a 200-character Hebrew caption, drawn as three right-to-left lines with its full stop on the left, where Hebrew puts it.
Does it work with Chinese, Arabic, Hindi and other scripts?
Yes. Captions are drawn with your computer’s own fonts, which cover Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Devanagari, Thai, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. Right-to-left lines are drawn right to left, and Chinese and Japanese break between words, not in the middle of one.
Right to left
Hebrew and Arabic lines keep their punctuation on the correct side, whatever the player.
No spaces between words
Chinese, Japanese and Thai break where the browser’s word segmenter finds a word boundary.
Mixed text
A name in Latin letters inside a Chinese caption is drawn in order, with the right fonts for both.
What if you don’t have a subtitle file yet?
Make one first. The subtitle generator transcribes a video into an SRT or VTT, and the subtitle editor lets you fix words and times before you burn them in. Out-of-sync captions can be moved with the subtitle shifter.
How do you subtitle recordings you make on a Mac?
With NoteOwl, the transcript is the subtitles. It transcribes a recording on your Mac, labels each speaker and exports SRT, which you bring here to burn into the video. Nothing about the recording leaves your Mac along the way.
FAQ
Questions about adding subtitles to a video
Is my video uploaded?
No. The video and the subtitle file are read from your device and the new video is made in the page. In our tests no network request left the browser while subtitles were burned in or added.
Which subtitle files can I use?
SRT, WebVTT, SBV (YouTube’s format) and ASS or SSA. ASS styling such as fonts and colours isn’t kept: captions are drawn in one clear style you choose. Files saved as UTF-16 or in the older Windows encoding are read correctly.
Why don’t I see the subtitle track in Chrome?
Because Chrome doesn’t show subtitle tracks stored inside a video file. QuickTime Player and Safari show an MP4’s track under Subtitles. For captions that show everywhere, burn them in instead.
How long does burning in take?
It re-encodes every frame, so it depends on the video’s length and size. On a Mac with Apple silicon, our 2 minute 19 second 640 × 360 test took 9 seconds in Chrome’s engine and 11 in Safari’s, and a 5½-minute 720p video 40 and 60 seconds.
Will the subtitles line up with the video?
They appear at the times in the subtitle file, measured from the first frame of the video. If they’re early or late throughout, move them all with the subtitle shifter, then add them again.
Can I add subtitles in two languages?
One file at a time. For two languages burned in, add the first, then add the second to the result with the other position, top or bottom. For tracks, the tool adds one track per video.
Keep exploring
Add subtitles to video
- Add subtitles to MP4Add an SRT or VTT to an MP4 in your browser: burned into the picture for social posts, or as a subtitle track QuickTime and Safari can switch on
- Add subtitles to MOVBurn subtitles into an iPhone or QuickTime MOV in your browser, upright on portrait videos, and keep it a MOV
- Add subtitles to WebMBurn subtitles into a WebM in your browser (re-encoded as VP9), or keep them separate as a VTT for a web page’s video
Related
- Subtitle generatorA free AI subtitle generator: drop in a video or recording and download SRT or VTT subtitles timed to the speech, two short lines per cue; only the sound is sent, nothing is stored
- Online subtitle editorEdit an SRT or VTT file in your browser: change text and times, add and delete captions, catch overlaps and over-fast captions, download
- Subtitle generatorTurn a recording into an SRT subtitle file with timecodes and speaker names, on your Mac
Subtitles from your recordings, made on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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