Automatic Dubbing

YouTube's automatic dubbing translates a video's speech with AI and adds the result as extra audio tracks, so a viewer whose preferred language differs may hear the video dubbed; such videos say "auto-dubbed" in their description, and the original voice is always one switch away in the player's settings (YouTube Help). For eligible creators it is on by default and runs on every new upload, and YouTube may dub older videos over time. Creators turn it off, or hold dubs for review, in the YouTube Studio app under Settings > Automatic dubbing. It is the automatic cousin of the audio tracks creators record themselves (Switch Audio Tracks and Languages), and one of YouTube's newest watching features.

Quick facts

From Use automatic dubbing, read Nov 6, 2026.

What viewers hear

6:26 YouTube picks an audio track to match the viewer's preferred language, which can mean a dub plays first. To hear the creator's own voice, open the player's Settings, choose the audio track, and pick the original language. Viewers can also set their preferred languages for audio, titles and descriptions in their account (Help; Switch Audio Tracks and Languages). Captions are separate: automatic captions stay in the original audio's language, and auto-translated subtitles are another way to follow a foreign video without a dub.

Languages

English videos can be dubbed into 20 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malayalam, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu and Ukrainian. Of the 30 source languages, English included, most of the others dub only into English, with a few exceptions: Hindi also into Bengali, Korean into Indonesian, Portuguese into Spanish, and Spanish into Arabic and Portuguese. Some languages support expressive speech, which copies the speaker's pitch and intonation, though it is not always used (Help). Studio's Languages page shows which dubs are available for each video, including experimental ones.

Which videos are not dubbed

Help lists six reasons a video gets no dub: it runs over 120 minutes; it has no speech, only music or very little talking; its language is unsupported; YouTube cannot detect its language; the speech is too fast to dub without sounding sped up; or it contains copyrighted content.

How do I turn off automatic dubbing on my YouTube channel?

1. Open the YouTube Studio app and tap your profile photo.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Under Content, tap Automatic dubbing and switch it off.

3:49 To keep dubbing but check each dub first, choose Publish manually on the same screen. Dubs for a single video are handled in YouTube Studio on a computer: Content, the video, Languages, then the icon in a language's Audio column, where a dub can be previewed, reviewed, published, unpublished or deleted. An unpublished dub can be published again later; a deleted one cannot be restored (Help). A creator whose channel lacks the feature can switch it on through early access under Advanced settings.

Quality and mistakes

Dubs cannot be edited. If a video's language was set wrongly, the dubs may be mistranslated; correct the video's language and YouTube makes them again. Help warns that dubs can stumble on accents, mispronunciations, background noise, names, idioms and jargon, and that the voice may not match the speaker well. Select channels can try experimental lip sync, which changes the speaker's mouth movements to fit the dub, under Settings > Channel > Advanced settings on a computer (Help). Creators who record their own dubs must delete an automatic dub in that language before uploading theirs (Add Multi-language features to your videos).

History

YouTube announced at Made on YouTube on Sep 21, 2023 that it was bringing Aloud, an AI dubbing tool, into YouTube for creators who cannot pay for professional dubbing (YouTube blog). It has since become the automatic dubbing described above. Help says creators who uploaded their own extra-language audio tracks saw over 25% of their watch time come from views in a language other than the video's main one.

What creators say

0:20 Jeremy Chapman, who had waited years for it on his two channels, found the feature in December 2024 under Studio's Settings > Upload defaults > Advanced settings, with choices to allow dubs, review them by hand, or review only the experimental languages. Then it worked only on new uploads, not on videos already posted, published or unlisted; Help now says YouTube may dub older videos over time.

1:45 On his English channel, dubbing started only once he had cleaned up the automatic captions or uploaded his own, and an hour later the video had French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish tracks.

5:17 As a German speaker who studied the language, Chapman judged the German dub "pretty accurate", though it sped up and slowed down to keep pace with the original, nothing like a studio dub that rewrites lines to match the lips. He saw an upside in that: it is "crystal clear" the voice is automated, which keeps viewers' expectations of accuracy lower.

8:00 His advice for better dubs is to fix the English captions first: capitalize names and product names, lowercase words YouTube wrongly took for names, and punctuate full sentences, since clean captions give the machine translation its best chance. One creator's test of one video, in one language he could judge.

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop YouTube from playing videos dubbed? Open the YouTube player's Settings, choose the audio track and pick the original language; setting your preferred audio language in your account also helps.

What does "auto-dubbed" mean on YouTube? It means YouTube generated the video's translated audio tracks with AI automatic dubbing rather than the creator recording them.

Can I edit an automatic dub on YouTube? No. YouTube does not allow editing automatic dubs; a creator can unpublish or delete a dub, or fix the video's language so the dubs regenerate.

Which languages does YouTube automatic dubbing support? English videos can be dubbed into 20 languages, and about 30 languages, including Spanish, Hindi, Japanese and Korean, can be dubbed into English.

Is YouTube automatic dubbing on by default? Yes, for eligible creators; it can be turned off in the YouTube Studio app under Settings > Automatic dubbing.

Sources

• Use automatic dubbing, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
• Add Multi-language features to your videos, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
• Made On YouTube: Empowering anyone to Create on YouTube, YouTube Official Blog, Sep 21, 2023
• YouTube's FREE Automatic Dubbing (multilingual audio), Jeremy Chapman, Dec 14, 2024 (video)