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Heroes of Might and Magic 3Captions and Subtitles
Turn YouTube captions on with the CC button or the C key, translate them with Settings, Subtitles/CC, Auto-translate, and restyle them under Options. Creators add captions in YouTube Studio's Subtitles page; automatic captions cover 67 languages.
To turn on captions on YouTube, click the Closed captions (CC) button at the bottom right of the player, or press C; on a phone, tap the video once and tap the CC icon (YouTube Help). If the button is missing, the video has no captions. To read them in another language, open Settings > Subtitles/CC and choose a language, or Auto-translate and then any language YouTube offers. Creators add captions in YouTube Studio by uploading a file, pasting a transcript to sync or typing them, and YouTube makes automatic captions in 67 languages by itself. Captions are also the text behind a video's transcript on YouTube.
Quick facts
| Turn on (computer) | CC button, or the C key |
| Turn on (phone) | Tap the video, then the CC icon |
| Translate | Settings > Subtitles/CC > Auto-translate |
| Style | Settings > Subtitles/CC > Options |
| Always on (app) | Settings > Captions > Show captions |
| Automatic captions | 67 languages for videos and Shorts |
| Live automatic captions | English only, normal latency |
From Manage caption settings, Use automatic captioning and Keyboard shortcuts for YouTube, read Nov 6, 2026.
How do I turn on captions on YouTube?
On a computer, click Closed captions at the bottom right of the player to turn them on, and again to turn them off; the C key does the same (Keyboard Shortcuts). On Android, iPhone and iPad, tap the video once and tap the Closed captions icon. To have captions on for every video that has them, go to your profile photo, Settings > Captions and switch on Show captions; on a computer, a YouTube Viewers video from Aug 22, 2018 showed the same choice as Always show captions, under the account's Settings > Playback and performance. The app also has Show when muted, under the player's Settings > Captions, which turns captions on whenever a video plays without sound (Help; Why Videos Autoplay Muted).
How do I auto-translate YouTube subtitles?
- Turn captions on.
- Open Settings in the player (on a phone, tap the video, then Settings > Captions).
- Choose Subtitles/CC. If your language is listed, pick it.
- If not, choose Auto-translate, then your language.
Auto-translate is machine translation of whatever captions the video already has, so its quality follows theirs: a video with careful captions translates far better than one with only automatic captions (Help). Spoken translation is a different feature: Automatic Dubbing and audio tracks in other languages.
Changing the caption style
On a computer, open Settings > Subtitles/CC > Options. You can change the font, its color, opacity and size; the background's color and opacity; the window's color and opacity; and the character edge style. The choices become your default for every video until you change them or click Reset (Help). In the app, the same is under Settings > Captions > Caption size and style.
Automatic captions
YouTube uses speech recognition to caption videos itself, in the video's default language only, and publishes them automatically when they are ready. Help lists 67 languages for videos and Shorts, and in English it can add expressive captions that show shouting in capitals and sounds such as sighs and gasps. They are machine made, so accents, mumbling and background noise produce mistakes; Help tells creators to review them (Use automatic captioning). By default, words YouTube judges potentially inappropriate show as "[ __ ]" in automatic captions; creators can change that under Settings > Channel > Advanced settings by unchecking Don't show potentially inappropriate words.
Automatic captions can be missing because the audio is still processing, the language is not supported, the video is too long, the sound is poor, it opens with a long silence, or people talk over each other or mix languages. On live streams, automatic captions are English only, need normal latency and are rolling out to channels with more than 1,000 subscribers; they are replaced by new captions once the stream becomes a video (Help; Live Streaming).
How do creators add captions?
- Sign in to YouTube Studio and choose Subtitles in the left menu.
- Click the video, then Add language, and pick the language.
- Under Subtitles, click Add and choose a method:
- Upload file, with timing (a caption file with timestamps) or without timing (plain text YouTube times itself).
- Auto-sync: paste or type the words spoken, and YouTube matches them to the audio in a few minutes. Help does not recommend it for videos over an hour or with poor audio.
- Type manually: play the video and type, with timings set automatically; add sound cues such as [applause].
- Publish.
Captions can also be added during upload. Automatic captions are edited from the same Subtitles page: click More beside them and correct what was misheard (Add subtitles & captions). Captions written by the creator, or translated into other languages, make a video readable for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and for people who speak another language, and they feed auto-translate a better source.
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn off subtitles on YouTube? Click the CC button in the YouTube player again or press C; in the app, also switch off Show captions in Settings > Captions so they stop coming back.
Why can't I see the CC button on a YouTube video? The video has no captions: the creator added none and YouTube made no automatic captions, often because the language is unsupported or the audio is unclear.
How do I translate YouTube subtitles into English? In the YouTube player, open Settings > Subtitles/CC, choose Auto-translate and then English.
How do I make YouTube captions bigger? On a computer, open Settings > Subtitles/CC > Options in the YouTube player and change the font size; in the app, use Settings > Captions > Caption size and style.
Are YouTube automatic captions accurate? Often close, but YouTube says they can misrepresent speech because of accents, dialects, mispronunciations or background noise, and asks creators to review them.
How do I add subtitles to my YouTube video? In YouTube Studio, choose Subtitles, the video, Add language, then upload a caption file, auto-sync a transcript or type the captions.
Sources
- Manage caption settings, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
- Manage caption settings (Android), YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
- Use automatic captioning, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
- Add subtitles & captions, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
- Keyboard shortcuts for YouTube, YouTube Help, read Nov 6, 2026
- How to adjust your caption settings on YouTube, YouTube Viewers, Aug 22, 2018 (video)
Moments
How to adjust your caption settings on YouTube
YouTube Viewers
- To turn on captions on YouTube, click the Closed captions (CC) button at the bottom right of the player, or press C…
- On a computer, click Closed captions at the bottom right of the player to turn them on, and again to turn them off…
- On a computer, open Settings > Subtitles/CC > Options. You can change the font, its color, opacity and size; the…
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See also
- Open a Video's TranscriptTo open a YouTube video's transcript on a computer, click "...more" under the video to expand the description, scroll to the Transcript section and click Show transcript; it works on any video that has captions.
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Keyboard ShortcutsYouTube's main keyboard shortcuts on a computer are k to play or pause, j and l to jump 10 seconds, f for full screen, m to mute, c for captions, and comma and period to step frames; Shift + ? shows the full list in the player.
- Why Videos Autoplay MutedYouTube videos start muted when they play by themselves in the Home feed or search results (the inline player), and browsers such as Chrome block sound on autoplay until you have interacted with the site or have played sound there before.
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Automatic DubbingYouTube automatic dubbing uses AI to add translated audio tracks to eligible creators' videos, labeled "auto-dubbed". Viewers switch back to the original audio in the player's settings; creators turn it off in the YouTube Studio app under Settings, Automatic dubbing.
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Switch Audio Tracks and LanguagesTo hear a YouTube video in another language, open the player's Settings gear, choose Audio track, and pick a language; "original" marks the creator's own voice, and dubbed tracks may be uploaded by the creator or generated by automatic dubbing.