Use subtitles and closed captions on Mac
You can customize the look of subtitles and closed captions, and choose to automatically show subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) or closed captions whenever they’re available. On supported models, you can also get automatic subtitles in supported apps and subtitles in other languages.
Tip: If your Mac supports it, you can turn on live captioning so you can more easily follow spoken audio from your computer and from conversations around you. See Get Live Captions of spoken audio.
Note: Generated subtitles and viewing subtitles in multiple languages is supported on macOS 27 or later is available on Mac models with M1 or later. Generated subtitles are available in English (U.S. and Canada) when the content doesn’t include them.
Use closed captions and SDH when available
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
Go to Hearing, then click Subtitles and Captioning.
Do any of the following:
Always show closed captions and SDH when available: Turn on “Prefer closed captions and SDH.”
Stop showing closed captions and SDH: Turn off “Prefer closed captions and SDH.”
Tip: You can automatically see subtitles when the language of a video doesn’t match your preferred system language—turn on “Show automatically when languages do not match.”
Customize the appearance of subtitles and captions
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
Go to Hearing, then click Subtitles and Captioning.
Do any of the following:
Create a style: Click
, enter a name for the style, then change settings for the background and text. If you like many of the settings of an existing style, select it before you click
To have your style used instead of the default style of the video you’re viewing, deselect the “Allow video to override” checkbox.
In the bottom section, you can also set a font to use to override another font every time it’s used in subtitles. For example, you might set a font to use instead of Cursive in subtitles.
Edit a style you created: Choose the style in the list, then click Edit.
Delete a style you created: Choosethe style in the list, then click
.
Manage when subtitles automatically appear
When you view a video in a supported app, subtitles may appear automatically if your Mac is muted, if you skip back a few seconds, or if the video is in another language. This includes automatically showing generated subtitles from videos in Photos and Messages.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
Go to Hearing, then click Subtitles and Captioning.
Automatically show subtitles in your preferred language: Turn on “Show automatically when languages don’t match.”
Automatically turn on subtitles when volume is muted: Turn on “Show when muted.”
Temporarily turn on subtitles when you skip back in a video: Turn on “Show on skip back.”
View subtitles in another language in supported video apps
In supported apps, your Mac can generate subtitles in another language using on-device translation. If a video has available English subtitles and you’ve added more than one preferred language in Settings, you can view subtitles translated into one of your other languages.
While playing video content, click
.
Click Languages, then choose the language you’d like to view subtitles in.