Closed captions for your videos: make the file, then add it
To add closed captions to a video, you make a caption file, an SRT or VTT holding the words and when each line shows, and upload it where the video plays; viewers then switch the captions on or off. Burncaps writes that file free from the video's sound, in your browser, and you correct any word before you save it. The video is never uploaded to us. If you want captions everyone sees, it burns them into the picture instead.
The video never leaves your browser. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone, it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the picture.
- SRT and VTT files
- Video never uploaded
- Free, no sign-up
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video. The SRT and VTT files carry the same words, timed the same way, as text.
How to add closed captions to a video, in two steps
1. Make the caption file
- Drop the video on this page: an MP4 or MOV, from a phone or a camera. It opens in your browser and is never uploaded to us.
- Let it listen. Burncaps writes down every word and times it to the voice.
- Read the script and correct it. Click any word to change it, and one click fixes every other place it was heard.
- Press SRT or VTT. The file is saved to your downloads, named after your video. ASS and a plain text transcript are one click away too.
2. Add it where the video plays
Upload the file to the video on YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Facebook or in PowerPoint, as in the steps below. The captions appear for viewers who switch them on.
Free, and how long it can be
SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes, with no sign-up. A longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files: the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Captions + Clips or Captions. On a 2020 MacBook with 8 GB of memory, 90 minutes of English were heard on the device in 8.8 minutes with WebGPU (5 October 2026); slower machines take longer.
Which caption file each place takes
Read on each platform's own help pages on 3 November 2026. Burncaps writes SRT and VTT, which between them cover every place below.
| Where the video plays | Caption files it takes | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | SRT and SBV as basic formats; VTT, TTML and more as advanced ones | For SRT, only basic files in plain UTF-8, with no styling read. ASS is not on YouTube's list |
| Vimeo | SRT and WebVTT, encoded in UTF-8 | Vimeo recommends WebVTT; you choose whether the file is a subtitle or a caption |
| SRT, added on a computer before you post | LinkedIn can also make auto captions, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic and Dutch | |
| SRT (SubRip), on a computer | Meta's help asks for a file named like filename.en_US.srt | |
| PowerPoint | WebVTT (.vtt); SRT in UTF-8 from version 2411 on Windows and 16.91 on a Mac | PowerPoint for the web takes WebVTT or SRT, and can also make captions itself |
| Your own website | WebVTT | The W3C calls WebVTT the most common caption format on the web |
YouTube, in YouTube Studio
- Sign in to YouTube Studio and choose Subtitles in the left-hand menu.
- Choose the video, click Add language and pick the language spoken.
- Under Subtitles, click Add, then Upload file.
- Choose the SRT or VTT file, follow the steps and click Save.
YouTube's help says you can also add subtitles and captions while you upload. Our YouTube subtitle generator page goes through it in detail.
Vimeo
- Go to your Library and open the video.
- Select the Languages button in the toolbar to the left of the player, then the + button at the top.
- Upload the file from your computer, then choose its Language and its Type: Subtitle or Caption.
- Select Upload, then switch the file on to show it.
LinkedIn, on a computer
- In the share box at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, click the Video icon, then Select video to share, and choose the video.
- In the preview, click Edit in the top right corner.
- Click Select Caption, attach the SRT file and confirm.
- Add your text and click Post. LinkedIn says the captions show once the video has been processed.
LinkedIn's page on adding closed captions said it was last updated five years ago when we read it, so a button may have moved since.
PowerPoint, on Windows or a Mac
- In Normal view, open the slide with the video and select the video.
- On the Playback tab, select Insert Captions, then Insert Captions again.
- Choose the VTT file (or an SRT, in the versions above) and click Insert.
- Play the video and check that the captions appear.
On a computer, Meta's help adds an SRT through the post's Edit post and Add captions, and asks for the file to be named with its language and country, such as filename.en_US.srt. Burncaps names the SRT after your video, so rename it first. The full steps, read on Meta's help centre on 3 November 2026, are on our Facebook video captions page.
Where these steps come from
Each platform's own help, read on 3 November 2026: YouTube Help, Add subtitles and captions and Supported subtitle and closed caption files; Vimeo Help, How to add captions or subtitles to my video; LinkedIn Help, Add Closed Captions to Videos on LinkedIn and Auto captions for videos on LinkedIn; Microsoft Support, Add closed captions or subtitles to media in PowerPoint; Meta's help centre, as listed on our Facebook page; and the W3C's Captions/Subtitles page. These pages change often, so we recheck them by 3 December 2026.
Closed captions, or captions burned in?
A closed caption file sits beside the video, and each viewer switches it on or off; the player draws it in its own look. Open captions are burned into the picture, so every viewer sees them, in any app, with the sound on or off, in the font and colours you chose. Burncaps makes both from the same corrected script: the SRT or VTT for a platform that takes one, and an MP4 with animated word-by-word captions in 60 styles for feeds and messages. Closed captions vs subtitles vs open captions explains every term, SDH included.
Burncaps writes the words it heard, and adds no descriptions of sounds and no speaker names. For viewers who cannot hear, add the sounds that matter, such as [door closes], and who is speaking to the file yourself, in a text editor or our free SRT editor.
Correct words, and captions in other languages
Check every word
The W3C says automatic captions do not meet accessibility needs unless they are confirmed to be fully accurate. So the whole script sits in front of you: click a word to correct it, and one click fixes every other place it was heard. This browser remembers the fix for your next video.
59 spoken languages
It writes captions in the language spoken, from 59 spoken languages, the list in Listening settings, including twelve Indian languages it can hear on your device.
Translated captions
Choose a language under Captions in, and the lines are translated into any of 59 languages before you save the file; only the transcript text goes to our AI for that. Translation works on recordings up to ten minutes, and on each clip cut from a longer one. Make one file per language.
Live captions in a meeting app or on your computer's screen, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Windows Live Captions, are a different job: they caption speech as it happens. Burncaps captions a recorded video file.
What it costs
Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark, no sign-up. Then try Captions + Clips free for 7 days, no card. Captions + Clips is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions; Captions is $9.98 a month or $49 once. The SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes.
Questions, answered plainly
How do I add closed captions to a video?
Make a caption file, an SRT or VTT that holds the words and their times, then upload it where the video plays: in YouTube Studio under Subtitles, in Vimeo under Languages, on LinkedIn with Select Caption, on Facebook with Add captions, or in PowerPoint with Insert Captions. Burncaps writes the file free from the video's sound, in your browser.
Can I make closed captions for free?
Yes. Burncaps writes SRT, VTT, ASS and text files free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes, with no sign-up. Free also gives 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark.
Which file format do closed captions need?
SRT works on YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn and Facebook, and in newer versions of PowerPoint. VTT (WebVTT) works on YouTube, Vimeo, PowerPoint and your own website, and Vimeo recommends it. Burncaps saves both.
Can I add closed captions to a video in PowerPoint?
Yes. Select the video, then on the Playback tab choose Insert Captions and pick a WebVTT (.vtt) file; Microsoft's help says SRT in UTF-8 also works from version 2411 on Windows and 16.91 on a Mac. Burncaps makes the VTT file from the video's sound.
Are closed captions the same as burned-in captions?
No. Closed captions are a file the viewer switches on or off. Burned-in captions, also called open captions, are drawn into the picture, so every viewer sees them and nobody can switch them off. Burncaps makes both from the same script.
Do Burncaps files include sound descriptions and speaker names?
No. Burncaps writes the words it heard, timed to the voice, and adds no sound descriptions or speaker names. For viewers who cannot hear, add those to the SRT or VTT yourself in a text editor or our free SRT editor.
Can I make closed captions in another language?
Yes. It writes captions in the language spoken, from 59 spoken languages, and can translate the lines into any of 59 languages before you save the file. Translation works on recordings up to ten minutes, and on each clip cut from a longer one.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Burncaps opens the video in your browser and never receives it. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone (short pieces of sound, never the picture, to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it).
Burncaps facts, checked 3 November 2026
What it is: a browser tool that burns animated word-by-word captions into a talking video, or finds the best moments of a talk, podcast or interview and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips.
Price: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each one recording with its captioned video and up to 3 clips, no mark and no sign-up; then the free 7-day Captions + Clips trial, no card (your email only); then Captions + Clips, $29 a month, gives unlimited clips and captioned videos, or Captions, $9.98 a month or $49 once, gives unlimited captioned videos. Captions paid once is not a subscription.
Privacy: the video never leaves your browser. The sound goes only to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it. Because the video never reaches us, we cannot keep it or train AI on it, and we train no AI on anything you make.
Files: MP4 or MOV in, MP4 out. Captions on the whole video: up to ten minutes. Clips: up to three hours, on a phone or a computer. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes; a longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files (the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Captions + Clips or Captions) and its clips (every one found and shown before you sign up; up to 3 from each free video exported free, every one in the trial or with Captions + Clips).
Clips: about one clip for every two minutes of talk, up to 30, ranked, the ones we would post first circled, each showing the words it opens and ends on and the reason it was chosen; each cut to 9:16 with ums and dead air removed, an opening card and captions, framed on whoever is talking. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Captions + Clips export every clip, unlimited.
Languages and styles: captions in the language spoken, twelve Indian languages heard on your device, translation into 59 languages, 60 caption styles.
After it listens: correct any word (one click changes it everywhere), add or cut words, one to six words at a time, position, size, text and highlight colours, and names this browser remembers, all free and without listening again.
Made by: Jordan Labs Ltd, UK company no. 17358646.
Against other tools: sixteen caption tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.