Captions

How to Add Captions to a Video Automatically

Published June 6, 2026 · 5 min read · By DownloadReels

Most people watch social video on mute, so captions aren’t optional any more — they’re how your message lands. The problem is typing them out is tedious. This tool does it automatically: an AI listens to your video, writes the captions, and burns them straight into the picture, the way top creators do for Reels, Shorts and TikTok.

1
Paste the video link

Copy a video that has speech and paste the URL into the tool.

2
Fetch the video

The tool loads it ready for the Auto-Caption feature.

3
Pick a language and style

Choose a caption style and position; the AI transcribes the audio for you.

4
Download the captioned video

The captions are burned in and the video downloads, ready to post.

How automatic captioning works

The tool runs OpenAI’s Whisper speech-recognition model entirely securely. It transcribes the spoken words with timing, styles them, and renders them permanently onto the video frames. Because it all happens securely, your video is never stored — and there’s no watermark or subscription.

Burned-in vs separate subtitle files

A separate .srt file only shows up on players that support subtitles, and most social apps don’t. Burned-in captions are part of the video itself, so they show everywhere — autoplay feeds, Stories, re-uploads — exactly as you designed them. If you’d rather have an editable file, use the Video to Text tool instead.

Tip: Short, punchy captions read best on a phone. Keep each line to a few words and place them in the centre or lower-third so they don’t clash with the app’s buttons.

Caption your video now

Auto-generate and burn in styled captions, ready for Reels and TikTok.

Open the Add Captions tool →

Frequently Asked Questions

Are the captions generated automatically?

Yes — an AI transcribes the speech, so you don’t type anything.

Can it caption other languages or translate?

Yes — it supports many languages and can translate the captions into English.

Is my video stored?

No — transcription and captioning happen securely. Nothing is stored.

Does it work on phones?

It runs a large AI model plus a video re-encode, so it’s desktop-only for now.

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