Two ways to caption a TikTok
TikTok has its own auto captions. They take one tap and they're good enough for a quick post. The catch is that TikTok adds them on top of your video, so viewers can hide them and they don't come with the file if you post it somewhere else.
The other way is to put the captions into the picture before you upload. That's what the tool above does. It takes a few more steps, but you pick the look and the captions stay on for everyone.
Method 1: TikTok auto captions in the app
TikTok's speech recognition writes out what you say, and you can fix the words before posting. These steps follow TikTok's accessibility help page at the time of writing (October 2026). TikTok moves buttons around between app versions, so the labels may differ slightly on yours.
- Tap the + (Add post) button at the bottom of the app.
- Record a video or upload one from your camera roll.
- Continue to the preview screen and tap Captions in the side panel.
- Wait while TikTok transcribes the audio.
- Go through the lines and fix anything it got wrong, save, and post as usual.
Editing TikTok auto captions after you post
Open the posted video, tap the caption on screen, then tap Edit captions. Change the line and save. You don't have to delete and repost to fix a typo.
How viewers turn them off
Viewers can hide auto-generated captions, either for one video (from the menu that opens when they long-press it) or for every video in the app's accessibility settings. So these behave like closed captions: helpful, but optional for the viewer. Our guide to open vs closed captions explains why that difference matters.
Method 2: add subtitles to TikTok videos before you upload
Burned-in captions are drawn onto the frames of the video, so TikTok sees them as part of the picture. Here's how to do it with the tool at the top of this page:
- Drop your clip into the tool. The video opens in your browser and isn't uploaded. Only a small audio track is sent for transcription.
- Wait for the transcript. Vertical videos automatically get short lines of about 22 characters, a few words at a time.
- Read every line. Usernames, slang and product names are where speech recognition slips. Click a line to retype it, or change its start and end times.
- Keep the Bold pop style this page opens with, or pick another one.
- Export the video. Most recent browsers write an MP4. If yours only offers WebM, switch browsers, since MP4 is the safer upload.
- Upload to TikTok as normal and leave the Captions button alone, or you'll get doubles.
Keep the captions clear of TikTok's buttons
TikTok covers the bottom of the screen with your username, the post text and the sound name, and stacks the like, comment and share buttons down the right side. Bold pop sits at about 70% of the frame height, above that area, in large uppercase text. The Karaoke, Classic and Boxed styles sit lower, at about 86%, which lands right under TikTok's text. If you use one of those, drag the position slider up before you export.
Two short lines is the ceiling. People are scrolling, and nobody stops to read a paragraph. If a line runs long, split it in the editor. For talking-head clips, check that the captions sit under your chin and not across your mouth.
Bold pop already turns each word yellow as you say it. If you'd rather have a yellow box behind the word, switch to Karaoke and raise its position, or set Active word to Highlight box. Our guide to word-by-word captions covers when that style helps and when it's just busy.
TikTok auto captions vs burned-in captions
| TikTok auto captions | Burned in with this tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you add them | TikTok's editor, on your phone | Your browser, before uploading |
| Cost | Free | Free, no watermark |
| Look | TikTok's standard caption style | Four presets plus font, size, colors and position |
| Viewers can hide them | Yes | No, they're part of the picture |
| Fix after posting | Yes, with Edit captions | No, you'd re-upload |
| Carry over to Reels and Shorts | No | Yes, same file |
If you post only to TikTok and don't mind the standard look, TikTok's own captions are the quicker choice and you can fix them after posting. If you want a consistent style across your videos, or you post the same clip in more than one place, burn them in.
Posting the same video to Reels and Shorts
A video with captions in the picture keeps them wherever you upload it. Instagram and YouTube use the same 9:16 frame, so one export works for all three. The buttons sit in slightly different places on each app, so watch the result once on your phone before posting. Instagram also has its own Captions sticker and closed captions. We cover those step by step in how to add captions to Instagram Reels.
For videos that aren't vertical, like a podcast clip or a YouTube upload, the same engine runs our main auto captions tool, which opens on the smaller Karaoke style.