Is CapCut safe? What its own terms say about your videos
Whether CapCut is safe for you depends on what you mind it doing with your videos, so here is what its own documents said when we read them on 2 November 2026. Your video can reach its servers while you edit, even before you save. Its privacy policy lists training machine learning models among the uses of what it collects. Its terms take a perpetual, worldwide licence to your content. We make Burncaps, a rival caption tool, so read the rest as a competitor's page.
- Read 2 Nov 2026
- Written by a rival, said up front
- Burncaps: video never uploaded
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video.
The short answer, from CapCut's own documents
| Question | What CapCut's documents say |
|---|---|
| Does my video go to CapCut's servers? | Yes. Its privacy policy says it may collect your content “through pre-uploading at the time of creation, import, or upload”, “regardless of whether you choose to save or publish”, and gives generating captions as one example. |
| Does it use my videos to train AI? | Its privacy policy says it does. For all users it lists using what it collects to “train, test, and improve technology, such as machine learning models and algorithms”. Its UK and EEA section names your content for that purpose and gives “our legitimate interests” as the legal basis. We found no way to opt out of the training in either document. |
| Does CapCut own my videos? | Its terms take a licence to use “your User Content”: “non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual and worldwide”, for “operating, developing and providing the Services, subject to your Platform settings”. |
| Can it use my name or face? | The terms add a licence to use your “username, image and likeness” to identify you as the source of your content, “including for use in sponsored content”, and ask you to waive rights of publicity and moral rights as far as the law allows. The privacy policy says: “We do not use any face or body information to identify you in your User Content.” |
| Does it claim my voice? | Not in the text we read. The word “voice” is in neither the licence of 15 April 2026 nor the one of 12 June 2025. |
| How long does it keep what it collects? | “As long as necessary to provide the Services”, including where it has a legitimate interest “such as improving and developing the Services”. Files in its Cloud Space are deleted “at your request or as otherwise permitted by applicable law”. |
From CapCut's Terms of Service (last updated 15 April 2026) and Privacy Policy (last updated 15 April 2026), read on 2 November 2026 from the UK. CapCut shows different text by region; the UK and EEA version is the one quoted. If its pages have changed since, they are the authority.
What changed since the June 2025 terms
CapCut's terms of 12 June 2025 granted an “unconditional, irrevocable” licence, also perpetual, worldwide and sub-licensable, “for providing the Services for you”. The terms of 15 April 2026 dropped “unconditional, irrevocable” from that grant and widened its purpose to operating, developing and providing the services. Perpetual, worldwide, sub-licensable and transferable are still there, and so is the licence to your username, image and likeness for sponsored content.
The June 2025 text is from the Wayback Machine's copy of 29 July 2025, read on 2 November 2026.
Where CapCut fits, and what you can do
What CapCut is good at
CapCut is a full editor: cuts, transitions, effects, music and overlays, with auto captions among them. If you are editing, an editor is the right tool, and Burncaps is not one. This page is only about what CapCut's documents say.
What you can do in CapCut
Read its terms and privacy policy yourself. Its licence is granted subject to your platform settings, so read those settings. Ask for files in its Cloud Space to be deleted, which its privacy policy says it does at your request. In the UK and EEA its training rests on legitimate interests, and data protection law there lets you object to that; we found no form for it, so writing to CapCut is the route.
When the video should stay with you
If the footage is a client's, under an NDA or simply private, caption it with a tool that never receives it. Burncaps is one. What 13 editors' terms say about training AI, and the other tools that keep the video on your device: which video editors train AI on your videos.
How Burncaps does the caption job without the video leaving your browser
Burncaps hears the words, draws the captions and writes the new MP4 inside your browser, so the video never reaches our servers and there is nothing of it for us to keep or train on. Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark and no sign-up. Then try Captions + Clips free for 7 days, no card. Captions + Clips is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions, or Captions is $9.98 a month or $49 once, captions only.
1. Open the Network tab
In Chrome or Edge on a computer, press F12 (Cmd, Option and I on a Mac) and choose Network. Tick Preserve log, because a video dropped on this page opens in the editor on the front page. Then drop a video and let it caption.
2. Read what goes out
Choose Fetch/XHR. The requests to burncaps.app are small, and clicking one and opening Payload shows what it carries: a step name or a random ID, never your file. The large rows are downloads coming in, such as the speech model, once.
3. Read the page's own lock
Click the first row, the page itself, and open Headers. Its Content-Security-Policy, under connect-src, names the only addresses the page's code may connect to. The browser refuses every other address.
What does leave, and only then: the sound, to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off and on a computer only if you choose it; the transcript text, to our AI, only when you choose Clips, type names to spell right or pick a caption language other than the one spoken; step counts with no identifier; and a small export check with two random IDs. Ticking Keep everything on this device stops every request that carries sound or words. Every request the page can make.
Questions, answered plainly
Is CapCut safe to use?
That depends on what you mind it doing with your videos. CapCut's own documents, read on 2 November 2026, say your content can reach its servers while you edit, even before you save; its privacy policy lists training machine learning models among the uses of what it collects; and its terms take a perpetual, worldwide, sub-licensable licence to your content. We make Burncaps, a rival, so read CapCut's terms and privacy policy for yourself.
Does CapCut use my videos to train AI?
Its privacy policy (last updated 15 April 2026) lists using what it collects to “train, test, and improve technology, such as machine learning models and algorithms”. Its UK and EEA section names your content for that purpose and gives its legitimate interests as the legal basis. We found no way to opt out of the training in either document.
Does CapCut own my videos?
Its terms (last updated 15 April 2026) take a licence to use your content: non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual and worldwide, for operating, developing and providing its services, subject to your platform settings. A second licence lets it use your username, image and likeness to identify you as the source of your content, including in sponsored content.
Does CapCut upload my videos to its cloud?
Yes. Its privacy policy says it may collect your content through pre-uploading when you create, import or upload it, whether or not you save or publish, and gives generating captions as one example. Files in its Cloud Space are deleted at your request or as the law otherwise permits.
Does CapCut's licence cover my voice?
Not in the text we read: the word “voice” is in neither its licence of 12 June 2025 nor its licence of 15 April 2026. What the terms name is your username, image and likeness, used to identify you as the source of your content. Its privacy policy says it does not use face or body information to identify you, and deletes it once an effect is applied.
What changed in CapCut's terms of service?
The terms of 12 June 2025 granted an unconditional, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide licence for providing the services to you. The terms of 15 April 2026 dropped “unconditional, irrevocable” from that grant and widened its purpose to operating, developing and providing the services. Perpetual, worldwide, sub-licensable and transferable are still there.
How can I caption a video without uploading it?
Use a tool that does the work in your browser or on your computer. Burncaps, which we make, hears the words and burns the captions in your browser, and the video is never uploaded: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark and no sign-up. On a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you switch it off.
Burncaps facts, checked 2 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 in the trial or on either paid plan).
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: clip tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.