How to Add Subtitles to a Video (SRT, VTT, and Burned-In Captions)

Most people watch video with the sound off. They watch on a train, in a waiting room, in bed next to someone sleeping — and if a video has no subtitles, they scroll past it. Subtitles are also how deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers watch at all, how non-native speakers follow a fast talker, and how search engines understand what a video is about. A video without subtitles reaches fewer people, and the people it reaches understand less of it.

This guide shows you how to add subtitles to a video: how to get the subtitle file from a transcript, what SRT and VTT files are and when to use each, and how to add them on YouTube, Vimeo, and social platforms — or burn them into the video itself. You can transcribe the video's audio with AudioToText and download the subtitles as SRT or VTT, ready to upload.

Why Subtitles Matter

The numbers are consistent across platforms: a large share of social video is watched without sound, and videos with captions are watched longer and understood better than the same videos without them. Viewers who can read along retain more of what they hear, because reading and listening together reinforce each other. For a business, that means a product video that is actually understood. For a teacher, it means a lesson that reaches every student. For a creator, it means a video that works in every setting, not just the quiet ones.

Subtitles are also an accessibility requirement, not a nice extra. Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers cannot follow a video without them, and in many countries the law requires captions on public video — including, in the United States, on many videos published by federal agencies and on broadcast television. The Federal Communications Commission publishes the rules for captioning online video; see the FCC for the current requirements. Even where the law does not require captions, providing them is what makes a video open to everyone.

There is a third benefit that creators often miss: subtitles make a video searchable. Search engines read subtitle files. A video with a full transcript and subtitles can rank for the words spoken in it, which means people searching for the topic can find the video — not just people browsing the platform. A subtitle file is, in effect, the video's text twin, and the text twin is what Google reads.

Why Transcription Is the Fastest Way to Subtitles

Writing subtitles by hand means listening to a video, typing what is said, and timing every line — a slow, fiddly job that takes four or five times the video's length. Transcription does the hard part automatically: it produces the words and the timings together. The subtitle file is then a matter of formatting, not of typing and timing from scratch.

The workflow is simple: transcribe the audio, download the SRT or VTT file, check it once, and upload it with the video. The checking matters — a subtitle with a wrong word is worse than no subtitle, because the viewer trusts it — but checking a generated subtitle file takes a fraction of the time that writing one takes. For a ten-minute video, the whole job is usually twenty minutes, not two hours.

SRT vs. VTT: What They Are and When to Use Each

Both formats are plain-text files that pair lines of dialogue with start and end times. They look similar, but they are used in different places.

SRT (SubRip)

SRT is the oldest and most widely supported subtitle format. Each entry has a number, a time range, and one or two lines of text:

1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,800
Welcome back to the show. Today we are
talking about subtitles.

Use SRT for YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and most video players and editors. If a platform accepts subtitles and does not say which format, SRT is the safe choice. AudioToText downloads subtitles as SRT with one click.

VTT (WebVTT)

VTT is the web standard, designed for HTML5 video. It starts with the line WEBVTT and uses a dot instead of a comma in the timecodes:

WEBVTT

00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:07.800
Welcome back to the show. Today we are
talking about subtitles.

Use VTT for web players, for video hosted on your own site, and for any platform that asks for WebVTT specifically. VTT also supports positioning and styling, so it is the better choice when you want the captions to appear in a particular place on the screen. AudioToText downloads subtitles as VTT as well.

If you only remember one rule: SRT for social platforms and YouTube, VTT for your own website. Both come from the same transcript, so you can download both and use whichever the platform asks for.

How to Make Subtitles From a Transcript, Step by Step

Step 1: Get the transcript with timestamps

Transcribe the video's audio — extract the audio track first if you only have the video file (for example with ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -ac 1 -ar 16000 audio.mp3), then upload the audio to AudioToText. Download the SRT file. That file already has the words and the timings; the rest is checking and uploading.

Step 2: Check the words that matter

Read the subtitle file once, watching the video at the same time. Fix names, numbers, and technical terms — the words a viewer will trust. Fix any line where the timing is clearly off, such as a subtitle that appears a second before the speaker starts. Do not try to fix every small error: a subtitle file with a few imperfect lines is far better than a video with no subtitles, and a perfect file that takes a week to finish will never be uploaded.

Step 3: Check the line length and timing

Good subtitles follow two rules: no more than two lines at a time, and no line longer than about 42 characters. A line that is too long forces the viewer to read instead of watch. A subtitle that stays on screen for less than a second cannot be read at all; one that stays for more than seven seconds feels frozen. Automatic transcription usually gets this right, but check the longest lines and the shortest ones, and split or merge them where needed.

Step 4: Upload the file with the video

Every platform has its own upload step, but the pattern is the same: open the video's settings, find the subtitles or captions section, upload the SRT or VTT file, and set the language. Do it the same day the video is published — subtitles added a month later help no one who already scrolled past.

How to Add Subtitles on Each Platform

YouTube. Open YouTube Studio, select the video, go to Subtitles, and upload the SRT file. YouTube will also offer its own automatic captions, but uploading your own file gives you control over the words and the timing — and it avoids the errors YouTube's own system makes with names and technical terms. Set the subtitle language to the language of the video.

Vimeo. Open the video settings, go to the Subtitles section, and upload the SRT or VTT file. Vimeo shows a caption button on the player once the file is attached.

Facebook and Instagram. Upload the SRT file with the video (Facebook) or use the captions sticker and the SRT file where supported (Instagram Reels). On social feeds, most viewers watch with the sound off, so captions are not optional — they are how the video is watched at all.

Your own website. Use the VTT file with an HTML5 <video> element and a <track> tag:

<video controls src="lesson.mp4">
  <track kind="subtitles" src="lesson.vtt" srclang="en" label="English" default>
</video>

The browser then shows a captions button on the player, and the viewer can turn the subtitles on or off.

Burned-in captions. Sometimes you want the words on the video itself, so they show even where the platform does not support subtitle files. That is called burning in, or open captions, and it is done with ffmpeg using the SRT file:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf subtitles=subtitles.srt -c:a copy video-captioned.mp4

Burned-in captions cannot be turned off, so use them for short social clips and ads, and use a separate subtitle file for longer videos where the viewer should have a choice. For more on turning audio into text in the first place, read our guide to transcribing podcasts — the same workflow produces the subtitle file.

Why Good Subtitles Follow a Few Simple Rules

One idea per subtitle. A subtitle should contain one complete thought, not half of one sentence and the start of the next. Viewers read in chunks; a subtitle that breaks mid-thought forces them to hold the first half in memory while they read the second.

Keep pace with the speaker. A subtitle should appear when the speaker starts and disappear when they stop. A subtitle that lingers after the speaker has finished feels wrong, and one that vanishes early is missed entirely. Automatic transcription timings are usually close; check the places where a speaker pauses for a long time, because the subtitle may end too early there.

Do not subtitle everything. Leave out the "ums", the false starts, and the overlapping chatter. Subtitles are a reading aid, not a court record. A clean subtitle that captures the meaning is better than a verbatim one that is hard to read.

Mark the non-speech that matters. [music], [applause], and [laughter] tell a deaf viewer what a hearing viewer hears. Mark the sounds that change the meaning of a scene, and leave out the ones that do not.

Check the spelling of names. A misspelled name in a subtitle is visible to every viewer, and it is the error people notice first. It is also the easiest to fix — the name is usually in the video's title or description.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Using auto-captions without checking them. Platform-generated captions are a starting point, not a finished product. They make the same errors automatic transcription makes, and they make them in front of your whole audience. Always upload your own checked file instead.

Subtitles that are too fast. If a subtitle flashes past in under a second, nobody read it. Split long sentences into two subtitles, and give each one time on screen. A viewer should never have to pause the video to read.

Forgetting the language setting. A subtitle file in the wrong language — or with no language set — may not appear at all, or may be offered to the wrong viewers. Set the language every time you upload.

Burning captions into a long video. Burned-in captions cannot be turned off, cannot be translated, and cannot be searched. Use them for clips; use a subtitle file for anything longer than a few minutes.

Publishing the video first and the subtitles later. The first hours after publication are when a video gets most of its views. If the subtitles are not there on day one, most viewers will never see them. Make the subtitle file part of the publishing checklist, not an afterthought. See pricing to find the plan that fits your video output — the Free plan covers 60 minutes a month, and Starter covers 10 hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do subtitles help a video rank in search?

Yes. Search engines read subtitle and transcript text, so a video with subtitles can rank for the words spoken in it. Uploading the full transcript as well as the subtitle file helps more, because it gives the search engine the whole text to index.

What is the difference between subtitles and captions?

Subtitles assume the viewer can hear but needs the words in another language, or in text. Captions (closed captions) include non-speech sounds — [music], [applause] — for viewers who cannot hear at all. For most online video, the same SRT file serves both purposes, with sound notes added where they matter.

How accurate do subtitles need to be?

As accurate as you can make them in the time you have. Names, numbers, and the main points should be right. A few small errors in filler words will not hurt. But a wrong number in a subtitle is a wrong number in front of every viewer — check those.

Can I translate subtitles into another language?

Yes — translate the SRT file, keeping the timings the same, and upload the translated file as a second subtitle track. Machine translation of a checked transcript is a reasonable starting point, but have a speaker of the language check it before you publish.

What if my video has music or no speech?

Then there is nothing to subtitle, and the transcript will come back nearly empty. Mark musical passages as [music] in the subtitle file by hand if you want deaf viewers to know what is happening on screen.

Key Takeaways

• Transcribe the audio, download the SRT or VTT file, check the names and numbers, and upload it the same day the video is published.
• Use SRT for YouTube, Vimeo, and social platforms; use VTT for your own website and HTML5 players.
• Keep subtitles to two lines and about 42 characters per line, one idea per subtitle, timed to the speaker.
• Burn captions into short social clips only; use a subtitle file for anything longer.
• Subtitles serve viewers who watch with the sound off, viewers who cannot hear, and search engines — three audiences for one file.

!Subtitles on a video player

Image description: The image should show a video player with a person speaking on screen, and two lines of white subtitle text on a dark bar at the bottom. To the right of the player is a small document showing subtitle timings, with an arrow from the document to the player. A caption reads "One transcript, two subtitle files, every platform covered."

References

• Federal Communications Commission — captioning rules for online video: https://www.fcc.gov/
• U.S. Department of Justice, Americans with Disabilities Act — effective communication: https://www.ada.gov/
• Library of Congress — audio and video collections: https://www.loc.gov/