Add subtitles to video YouTube, CapCut, Premiere, DaVinci, VLC & web

Everything here is free, without watermark, account or trial countdown.

Here's how to generate it once and attach it on every platform, step by step.

Plain transcript and subtitles right here. Bleeping, translation and burned-in subtitles live in the full tool.

The one thing that actually breaks here

The "add subtitles" step inside the main tool — the tick-box that also burns captions into the picture — was used 30 times in the 40 days to 21 August 2026. The failures worth knowing about before you start aren't really about subtitle quality; they're about the video file itself. "We couldn't open that video, if it plays for…" came up 23 times in the same window: almost always a container or codec a browser can play back fine but the processing step can't read cleanly, which is a different problem from a video that has no audio track at all (a separate, more common error on this site). Either way the fix is usually the same: re-export the file from whatever recorded or edited it, rather than renaming the extension or trying a different app to open it. Across every tool here, 1,647 jobs ran in the same 40 days, and the video ones almost always come back with SRT and VTT together rather than one or the other — which matters below, since which platform you're attaching to decides which one you actually need.

1.YouTube

1. Open YouTube Studio → Subtitles in the left menu (or, on the video's edit page, Subtitles).
2. Pick your video and language, click Add → Upload file.
3. Choose With timing and select your .srt file, then publish.

Your uploaded captions override YouTube's rougher auto-captions, and viewers toggle them with the CC button. Uploading captions in other languages works the same way: one SRT per language.

2.CapCut

1. In CapCut (desktop), open your project and go to the Text panel → Captions.
2. Choose Import captions (in Local captions) and select your SRT file, cues land on the timeline as text, already timed.
3. Style them once (font, size, position) and apply to all; export as usual.

Note: exporting from CapCut burns the captions into the pixels (open captions), good for TikTok/Reels feeds where soft subtitles aren't supported, but viewers can't turn them off.

3.Premiere Pro

1. File → Import your .srt; drag it from the Project panel onto the sequence; Premiere creates a caption track above the video.
2. In the Captions/Text workspace, set the format (subtitle) and adjust styling with Essential Graphics.
3. On export, choose Create sidecar file (a separate .srt next to the video) or Burn captions into video.

4.DaVinci Resolve

1. File → Import → Subtitle and pick your SRT; it appears in the Media Pool.
2. Drag it onto the timeline: Resolve adds a dedicated subtitle track; style it in the Inspector.
3. On the Deliver page, choose whether to export subtitles as a separate file, embed them, or burn them in.

5.VLC (just watching)

No editing needed: give the SRT the same name as the video (talk.mp4 + talk.srt) in the same folder, and VLC loads it automatically. Or drag the SRT onto the playing video, or use Subtitle → Add Subtitle File…. Most TVs and media players (Plex, Kodi) follow the same same-name convention.

6.Your own website

Browsers require the VTT format here. Put the .vtt file next to your video and reference it with a <track> element:

<video controls width="720" src="/demo.mp4">
  <track kind="captions" src="/demo.vtt"
         srclang="en" label="English" default>
</video>

kind="captions" tells the browser it's a caption track, default switches it on initially, and you can add multiple <track> elements for multiple languages. The browser renders the cues natively and viewers toggle them in the player controls (no JavaScript required).

Why bother? Reach, accessibility, SEO

• Sound-off viewing. A large share of social video is watched muted: in feeds, offices, public transport. No captions often means an instant scroll-past.
• Accessibility. Captions make your content usable for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, and easier for non-native speakers to follow. For many public-sector sites it's a legal requirement (WCAG).
• SEO. Speech in a video is invisible to search engines; a caption file or transcript turns every spoken word into indexable text. Better comprehension also lifts watch time (a ranking signal on YouTube).
• Editing bonus. A timed transcript doubles as a searchable index of your own footage: find the quote, jump to the timestamp.
• Works on a phone too. On Android or an iPhone the steps are the same: generate the SRT in the mobile browser, then attach it in whatever app you're editing in.

FAQ