How to add subtitles in iMovie
iMovie adds titles: text you type and place on a clip yourself. Apple's iMovie guides for Mac and iPhone, read on 3 November 2026, have no page on automatic captions or on importing a subtitle file. Below are Apple's own title steps for typing subtitles by hand, then the faster way: export the movie, drop it here, and Burncaps burns animated word-by-word captions into it from the speech, free. The video is never uploaded to us.
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.
- Video never uploaded
- Free, no sign-up
- No watermark
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video.
Type subtitles into iMovie, with titles
In iMovie a subtitle is a title: one line of text you type, place over a clip and stretch to the length of the words. These are Apple's steps.
How to add subtitles in iMovie on a Mac
- Open your movie in the timeline, then select Titles above the browser.
- Browse the title styles, or use the search field to find one by name.
- Put the playhead where the line is spoken and double-click the title, or drag the title into the timeline above the clip.
- Double-click the placeholder text in the viewer and type the line.
- Change the font, colour, size, style or alignment with the font controls above the viewer. The B, I and O buttons make it bold, italic or outlined.
- Click Apply.
- Drag either edge of the title bar in the timeline to set how long it shows, or type a time in the Duration field of the Clip Information.
Apple notes that the font cannot be changed in some theme and animated titles. Each title is one line you type and time by hand, so a talk needs one for every sentence.
How to add subtitles in iMovie on an iPhone
- Open the movie project and tap a video clip in the timeline.
- Tap the Titles button, then tap a title.
- Tap the sample title in the viewer, tap Edit, type the line and tap Done on the keyboard.
- Drag the title to move it, and pinch it to make it bigger or smaller.
- For the look, use the Font and Color buttons. Under Style, Lower Third places the title toward the bottom of the screen; under More, turn on Text Shadow or Uppercase.
In Apple's iPhone guide a title belongs to a clip or a photo, which then shows a T in the timeline.
Where these steps come from
Apple's own help: Add titles in iMovie on Mac, Modify titles in iMovie on Mac and Add titles to a movie in iMovie on iPhone, all read on 3 November 2026. Neither the Mac guide nor the iPhone guide had a page on captions, subtitles or subtitle files that day. Apple changes iMovie from time to time, so a button may have moved since.
The faster way: captions made from the speech
Export from iMovie
On a Mac: select the movie, choose File, Share, File, pick the resolution and quality, click Next and Save. On an iPhone: tap the Share button, Share Video, then Save Video for your photo library or Save to Files. These are Apple's steps.
Drop it in Burncaps
Open burncaps.app in your browser and drop the file, or pick it from your phone. It opens in this page and is never uploaded to us. Every word is heard and timed to the voice, and you click any word to correct it.
Pick a style and export
Choose one of 60 styles, change the font, colours, size and place if you like, and export a new MP4 with animated word-by-word captions in the picture, for a video up to ten minutes.
| What matters | iMovie titles | Captions burned in with Burncaps |
|---|---|---|
| Where the words come from | You type each line | The speech in the video, which you then check |
| Timing | You place and stretch each title by hand | Every word timed to the voice |
| The look | iMovie's title styles, with font, colour, size, bold, italic and outline on a Mac | Animated word by word, in 60 styles, at the size and place you choose |
| Can a viewer switch them off? | No: titles are part of the picture | No: the captions are part of the picture |
| A subtitle file | Apple's guides describe none | SRT, VTT, ASS and text files too, free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes |
Caption the finished movie
Burned-in captions become part of the picture, so caption the movie once the edit is done: a cut made afterwards cuts the captions with it. On a computer the whole video keeps its own resolution, and an AAC sound track, the usual kind in an MP4, is copied as it was.
For YouTube: subtitles viewers can switch on
If the iMovie video is going to YouTube and you want subtitles that viewers can turn on and off, save an SRT file from Burncaps instead of burning them in, and upload it in YouTube Studio beside the video. Each subtitle is timed to the voice, up to two lines of 42 characters. The YouTube subtitle generator has YouTube's own upload steps.
Where the words go
The video stays in your browser. On a computer, English is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service, which is also offered for other languages and for recordings over ten minutes; on a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the picture, and passes them to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it. The script's text leaves your device only if you type names to spell right, choose a translation or choose Clips (it then goes to our AI); ticking Keep everything on this device stops that. Transcribe a video without uploading it shows how to check every request yourself.
Add captions to your iMovie video now
Drop the exported movie and Burncaps burns animated word-by-word captions into it in your browser, free for 2 videos every 30 days with no watermark.
A long video? Get the clips too
From a podcast, a talk or a long vlog, Burncaps finds the moments worth posting and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips. 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. Long video to Shorts says more.
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.
Questions, answered plainly
Does iMovie have auto captions?
Apple's iMovie User Guides for Mac and for iPhone, read on 3 November 2026, have no page on automatic captions: they describe titles, which you type and place yourself. For captions made from the speech, export the movie from iMovie and burn them in with Burncaps, free for 2 videos every 30 days with no watermark.
Can iMovie import an SRT file?
Apple's iMovie guides for Mac and for iPhone, read on 3 November 2026, have no page on importing a subtitle or caption file. For an iMovie video on YouTube, upload an SRT file in YouTube Studio beside the video. For captions in the picture, drop the exported movie on Burncaps, which makes them from the speech.
How do I add subtitles in iMovie on a Mac?
Open your movie in the timeline and select Titles above the browser. Put the playhead where the line is spoken and double-click a title, or drag it above the clip. Double-click the placeholder text in the viewer, type the line and click Apply, then drag the title's edges in the timeline to set how long it shows. Repeat for every line. These are Apple's steps, read on 3 November 2026.
How do I add subtitles in iMovie on an iPhone?
Open the movie project, tap a clip in the timeline, tap the Titles button and choose a title. Tap the sample title in the viewer, tap Edit, type the line and tap Done. Under Style, Lower Third places the title toward the bottom of the screen. These are Apple's steps, read on 3 November 2026.
How do I add captions to an iMovie video automatically?
Export the movie from iMovie (File, Share, File on a Mac; Share, Share Video on an iPhone), then drop the file on burncaps.app. Burncaps hears the speech in your browser, times every word to the voice and burns animated word-by-word captions into a new MP4, for a video up to ten minutes. Correct any word with a click before you export.
Can I make iMovie subtitles bigger, or put them at the bottom?
In iMovie on a Mac, the Size menu beside the Font menu changes the text size; on an iPhone, pinch the title, and Lower Third under Style places it toward the bottom (Apple's guides). In Burncaps, the Size control goes from 55% to 160% of each style's own size, and you drag the captions wherever you want them.
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.