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How to add captions to a Mac screen recording

macOS has Live Captions, a live transcript of what your Mac plays or hears, shown in its own window. Apple's guide describes no way to save those captions or add them to a video. To put captions in the recording itself, use captions Pro (Shotbolt Pro) in the Shotbolt video editor Pro (Shotbolt Pro).

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The Shotbolt steps here need Pro (Shotbolt Pro). Updated .

What macOS does on its own

Live Captions transcribes spoken audio in real time, from any app or from the microphone:

  1. Choose Apple menu → System Settings.
  2. Click Accessibility in the sidebar, then click Live Captions. You may need to scroll down.
  3. Turn Live Captions on. The Live Captions window appears while there is audio.
  4. To switch between your Mac's audio output and its microphone, use the button in the top-right corner of the Live Captions window.

Apple says the audio is processed on device. Live Captions is available only on Mac computers with Apple silicon, not in all languages, countries or regions, and its first use downloads language data, so the Mac needs to be online that once. Apple also notes that its accuracy may vary.

Apple's guide shows the captions only in the Live Captions window, and describes no way to save them or add them to a video file. For a recording that carries its own captions, use the steps below.

Add captions in Shotbolt

Captions Pro (Shotbolt Pro) are made in the video editor Pro (Shotbolt Pro), from a recording you made with screen recording Pro (Shotbolt Pro) in Shotbolt. It needs macOS 26 or later. Every download from this site starts with 7 days of Pro.

  1. Record with sound: click the Shotbolt icon in the menu bar, choose Record Screen Pro (Shotbolt Pro), and turn on the microphone, system audio or both in the bar under the area.
  2. On the recording's Quick Access card, or on the recording in History, choose Edit Video Pro (Shotbolt Pro).
  3. In the video editor, click the Captions tab.
  4. If the recording has both your microphone and your Mac's sound, choose Microphone, System audio or Both under Audio. Under Language, pick a language or leave Automatic, which uses the first of your Mac's preferred languages that can be transcribed.
  5. Click Generate Captions Pro (Shotbolt Pro). The first time you use a language, macOS downloads its speech model, and the panel shows the progress with a Cancel button. You can keep editing while it runs.
  6. Click Export or press Command-E, and export an MP4 or a GIF. The captions are burned into the picture, as the preview shows them.
The video editor with the Captions tab open: caption style, the transcript list, and a caption on the recording with the spoken word highlighted.

To caption every recording without asking, turn on Transcribe recordings automatically Pro (Shotbolt Pro) in Settings → Intelligence. It is off by default. Help and Features have more.

Correct and style the captions

  • Fix a word. Double-click it in the transcript, or right-click it and choose Correct Text…. Click a timestamp to jump to that moment.
  • Look. Under Style, choose a font (Default, Rounded, Serif or Mono), a size, how solid the background is, and 1 line or 2 lines. Highlight the spoken word colors each word as it is said.
  • Place. Choose Top, Middle or Bottom, and move them with Offset. On a 9:16 or 4:5 video, Top and Bottom keep clear of the buttons and text that short-video apps lay over the picture.
  • Hide. The switch next to Captions hides them in the preview and in exports, without losing the transcript.

The transcript also edits the video: click a word, Shift-click another, and press Delete to cut that part out. Remove Pauses and Fillers lists long pauses and words such as “um” for you to review before anything is cut.

Keep the captions as a file

For a player or a site that takes its own captions, open the Subtitles menu at the bottom of the Captions tab and choose SRT… or WebVTT…. The file follows the edited video's timing, so trims and cuts are already in it. Copy Text copies the transcript of the edited video.

Limits

  • Your own recordings. The video editor opens recordings made in Shotbolt, from Quick Access or History.
  • Sound. A recording without audio has nothing to transcribe. If no speech is found, try another audio source or language.
  • Languages. Captions use the languages Apple's speech recognition supports on your Mac. For any other, Shotbolt says it cannot be transcribed on this Mac.
  • Sped-up parts. They play without sound, so the speech in them gets no captions.
  • Generate Again. Making the captions again replaces the transcript, and your corrections with it. Shotbolt asks first.

Questions

Is my recording uploaded to make the captions?

No. The speech is turned into text on your Mac with Apple's on-device speech recognition, and the audio is not uploaded. The one download is the speech model for a language, which macOS fetches the first time you use it.

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