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

No account. No daily cap.Others give you three files a day and call it unlimited. Files up to 60 minutes here, as often as you like.

One subtitle file works everywhere: YouTube, CapCut, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, VLC, even your own website. Here's how to generate it once and attach it on every platform, step by step.

Plain transcript and subtitles right here. Speaker labels, bleeping, translation, burned-in subtitles and files over 90 MB live in the full tool.

Just want the subtitle file? → Generate SRT/VTT subtitles free, then come back here to attach it.
Don't want to open an editor at all? ScribeGrab can now put the subtitles into the picture for you and hand back an MP4: upload your video, tick “Also make a clean or subtitled version”, pick one of three looks, press the button. That's the burn-in route below, without CapCut, HandBrake or a render queue — free, no watermark. → Try it
This is a caption. 01:12 CC
A soft SRT/VTT caption renders over the video: viewers toggle it with the CC button, and search engines can read every word.
Step 0: get a subtitle file

Everything below starts with a subtitle file: SRT for platforms and editors, VTT for the web (here's the full SRT vs VTT breakdown). Typing one by hand means timestamping every sentence; don't. Upload your video to ScribeGrab and it transcribes the speech and hands you both SRT and VTT, free, no daily cap, no watermark. Give the file a one-pass proofread: automatic transcription is very good on clear speech, but names, numbers and jargon deserve a check.

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 StudioSubtitles in the left menu (or, on the video's edit page, Subtitles).
  2. Pick your video and language, click AddUpload 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

Soft vs burned-in: prefer a separate (soft) subtitle file wherever supported: toggleable, accessible, fixable without re-rendering. Burn in only for platforms that ignore sidecar files, like most short-form social feeds — and when you do, ScribeGrab burns them in for you, no editor needed.
Generate your subtitle file now

Upload your video once to ScribeGrab and you get the transcript (TXT) plus both subtitle formats (SRT + VTT) in one go: free, no account, files up to 60 minutes, deleted right after processing.

Get SRT + VTT for your video →

FAQ

How do I add subtitles to a video for free?

Generate an SRT/VTT with a free tool like ScribeGrab, then attach it: YouTube Studio → Subtitles, a caption track in CapCut/Premiere/DaVinci, same-name file for VLC, or a <track> element on your site.

Do I need SRT or VTT?

SRT for YouTube and video editors; VTT for HTML5 <track> on your own site. ScribeGrab gives you both from one upload.

Do subtitles help SEO?

Yes, they make spoken content indexable, improve watch time, and keep muted-feed viewers watching.

Burn in or separate file?

Separate file wherever supported (toggleable, accessible, editable). Burn in only where sidecar subtitles aren't supported, like most short-form social feeds.

Can I burn subtitles into a video without an editor?

Yes. Upload the video to ScribeGrab with “Also make a clean or subtitled version” ticked, choose Classic, Boxed or Big, and download an MP4 with the text already in the picture. Nothing to install, no watermark, and the original stays untouched.