Calculation subtitles or closed captions to your YouTube videos is useful for a number of dissimilar reasons. Yous don't need special software to do information technology either—YouTube already provides all the tools you need in YouTube Studio.

You lot tin can employ YouTube'south subtitle tools in a few different ways, some of which take much more than fourth dimension than others. This guide will testify you how to add subtitles to your YouTube videos, likewise as how to salvage fourth dimension by using automatically-generated captions.

Why Add Subtitles to YouTube Videos?

Subtitles in YouTube videos are useful for many reasons. For starters, they make your content accessible to people with hearing impairments.

They also enable viewers to watch your videos with the audio off. And, of course, they can exist used to provide foreign language translations if your videos have an international audience.

Subtitles can also provide viewers with a means to search for particular words in YouTube videos—something that wouldn't otherwise be possible

How to Manually Add Subtitles to YouTube Videos

To manually add together subtitles to your YouTube videos, the get-go thing you need to do is open YouTube Studio. Click on your profile in the height-right of YouTube, and select YouTube Studio.

open YouTube Studio

Y'all'll exist taken to your YouTube channel dashboard. This shows y'all some bones stats about your YouTube channel, such every bit your total number of subscribers and your summit videos. In that location'southward also some information hither geared towards content creators.

YouTube Studio main page

You can upload videos from here as well. If the video you lot want to add subtitles to is already uploaded, you can get started. If it's not, click the Upload Videos button, and upload your content equally you would with whatsoever other YouTube video.

Once your video is uploaded, it'due south time to start working on the subtitles. Select Subtitles from the carte on the left side of YouTube Studio. This will have you to the Aqueduct subtitles page. From hither, choose the video y'all want to work on.

To demonstrate, nosotros've chosen a 30-second clip from the 1959 sci-fi film Teenagers from Outer Space, purely for its name and the fact that it'due south in the public domain.

Uploading clip to YouTube

YouTube will have already created some subtitle options for you. In our case, the start i isEnglish (Automatic), and the second option is English language (United Kingdom) (Video Language).

These volition differ depending on the linguistic communication that YouTube detects in your video and your own YouTube language settings.

YouTube channel subtitles screen

If y'all choose the option that includes(Video Linguistic communication), yous'll be able to add together your own subtitles. Non merely can y'all add captions and modify timings with this setting, only you can too add together subtitles by typing them in manually, uploading a file, or using motorcar-sync.

If y'all want to add your own subtitles manually, you tin can make it easier by toggling the Pause while typing tick box below the video preview. This will enable yous to play the video and accept information technology automatically suspension while you add your captions.

It might take some practice to get this right, only it's a big time saver once you lot're used to it.

YouTube Studio adding subtitles

Y'all tin can get-go adding subtitles by clicking theExplanation push button at the height left corner of the window. Each time you press Enter, it will create a new explanation. This volition automatically add timings as well, which you lot can edit afterward using the basic timeline at the bottom of the captioning window.

You can likewise choose Edit equally text, and write everything out as a single piece of text. In this fashion, striking Enter twice will turn the side by side line into a new caption. Hit it in one case will create a line break in that caption, so you can accept multiple lines appear on your screen at in one case.

Customizing Automatically Generated Subtitles

Manually typing video subtitles can exist a long, painstaking process. Not simply practice you demand to get all the words correct, but you have to ensure your timing makes sense too. If you're not a fast typist, that makes the task fifty-fifty more challenging.

YouTube's automobile-generated subtitles take a lot of that pain away. They detect dialog in videos and use oral communication recognition to plough it into text. They can fifty-fifty interpret spoken language into different languages.

YouTube auto-generated subtitles example

By default, YouTube'southward machine-generated subtitles are far from perfect, but with a little bit of tweaking, they can relieve you lot a pregnant corporeality of fourth dimension and effort.

On the Channel subtitles folio, click on the video yous want to edit, so locate the subtitle linguistic communication option that says(Automatic ). Select Duplicate and edit.

You lot can now start working on a copy of the automobile-generated subtitles. How accurate they are will depend on the quality of the sound in your video, amid other things.

In our case, the captions YouTube has generated for our clip are mostly authentic. At that place are a few instances of words being misheard, such as "watched" being interpreted every bit "lost," but information technology's shut plenty. And all the timing is perfect, then the subtitles announced on the screen as soon as the actors brainstorm speaking.

YouTube auto-generated subtitles added

The biggest problem is the complete lack of grammar and punctuation. The automatic subtitles are but i continuous chunk of text.

To fix this, the start thing you should do is add paragraph breaks where needed. Each break will be displayed as a separate caption. We've broken things mainly into single sentences.

YouTube subtitles add paragraph breaks

YouTube Studio keeps all the timings as they were, so you shouldn't demand to edit this. If you do want to change when captions appear and for how long, utilize the timeline at the bottom of the subtitles window.

Now, it'due south time to prepare the punctuation and grammer. This is all straightforward—simply add some missing commas, periods, question marks, etc. Information technology's too a good idea to right whatsoever misheard words.

YouTube fixed subtitles

Once you've edited your subtitles to your liking, click Publish. Yous tin can likewise relieve your typhoon and come back to information technology later if you're not finished.

To brand changes to your subtitles subsequently you've published them, click Edit on the Video subtitles folio.

At present, whenever anyone watches your video, they can select the subtitles you created. The machine-generated captions volition also remain an option.

Adding a Different Language to YouTube Subtitles

You lot may want to provide a translation for foreign speakers. To practice so, head to the Channel subtitles folio, select the video yous want to edit, and clickAdd linguistic communication on theVideo subtitles folio. For this instance, we've chosen French.

YouTube French title and description

Click Add under Title & description, and you can add your video's information in your called language. At that place are various online translation services that can help you here.

YouTube translated subtitles

Now click Edit, and you tin can first working on your translation. You tin upload subtitles, type them manually, or use auto-interpret.

If you lot've already edited your ain subtitles, YouTube will employ them as the basis of its translation—consummate with punctuation and capital letters.

Improve Your YouTube Videos With Subtitles

Subtitles make your YouTube videos more accessible. By using auto-generated subtitles as a base, y'all can save yourself fourth dimension and attempt. Your subtitles can be clean and accurate, and your viewers will benefit.

clip from teenagers from outer space

Creating subtitles is only 1 of the many interesting things y'all can do with YouTube Studio. If you want to create better videos, it'due south well worth exploring all of its features.

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