You can make your video content available to a larger audience when you add captions. If you want to reach deaf, hard-of-hearing viewers or speakers of different languages, captions help these groups understand your videos.
To add caption tracks, use a caption file, which contains the text and other information to time your captions with your video.
A subtitle or closed caption file contains the text of what's said in the video. It also contains time codes for when each line of text should be displayed. Some files also include position and style info, which is especially useful for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers. See what file formats Drive supports below.
If you're new to creating caption files, we recommend using one of the following basic file types:
Advanced file formats
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Format name
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File extension
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More info
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.srt
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.sbv or .sub
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MPsub (MPlayer subtitle)
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.mpsub
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"FORMAT=" parameter is supported.
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.lrc
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Videotron Lambda
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.cap
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This file type is primarily for Japanese subtitles.
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If you're new to creating caption files, you may want to use SubRip (.srt) or SubViewer (.sbv). They only require basic timing info and can be edited using any plain text editing software.
The main difference between SubRip and SubViewer files is the format of the caption start and stop times. Here are examples of both formats:
SubRip (.srt) example
100:00:00,599 --> 00:00:04,160>> ALICE: Hi, my name is Alice Miller and this is John Brown200:00:04,160 --> 00:00:06,770>> JOHN: and we're the owners of Miller Bakery.300:00:06,770 --> 00:00:10,880>> ALICE: Today we'll be teaching you how to makeour famous chocolate chip cookies!400:00:10,880 --> 00:00:16,700[intro music]500:00:16,700 --> 00:00:21,480Okay, so we have all the ingredients laid out hereSubViewer (.sbv) example
{inset box]0:00:00.599,0:00:04.160>> ALICE: Hi, my name is Alice Miller and this is John Brown0:00:04.160,0:00:06.770>> JOHN: and we're the owners of Miller Bakery.0:00:06.770,0:00:10.880>> ALICE: Today we'll be teaching you how to makeour famous chocolate chip cookies!0:00:10.880,0:00:16.700[intro music]0:00:16.700,0:00:21.480Okay, so we have all the ingredients laid out hereUse these file formats if you want to have more control over the styling (markup) or positioning of your captions.
Broadcast file formats
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Format name
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File extension
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More info
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SAMI (Synchronised Accessible Media Interchange)
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.smi or .sami
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Only timecodes, text and simple markup (<b>, <i>, <u> and the color= attribute within a <font>) are supported. Positioning isn't supported.
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RealText
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.rt
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Only timecodes, text and simple markup (<b>, <i>, <u> and the color= attribute within a <font>) are supported. Positioning is not supported.
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.vtt
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In initial implementation. Positioning is supported, but styling is limited to <b>, <i>, <u> since CSS class names aren't yet standardised.
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TTML (Timed Text Markup Language)
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.ttml
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In partial implementation. SMPTE-TT extensions supported for CEA-608 features. iTunes Timed Text (iTT) file format is supported; iTT is a subset of TTML, Version 1.0. Styling and positioning are supported.
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DFXP (Distribution Format Exchange Profile)
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.ttml or .dfxp
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These file types are interpreted as TTML files.
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These file formats are typically used for closed captions for broadcast content (TV and movies) and support either of these standards:
Drive tries to display the captions from these files as if they were on a TV – with the same styling, colour and positioning.
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Format name
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File extension
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More info
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Scenarist Closed Caption
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.scc
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These files have an exact representation of CEA-608 data. This is the preferred format whenever captions are based on CEA-608 features.
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EBU-STL (binary)
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.stl
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European Broadcasting Union standard.
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Caption Center (binary)
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.tds
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Supports CEA-608 features.
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Captions Inc. (binary)
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.cin
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Supports CEA-608 features.
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Cheetah (ASCII text)
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.asc
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Supports CEA-608 features.
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Cheetah (binary)
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.cap
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Supports CEA-608 features.
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NCI (binary)
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.cap
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Supports CEA-608 features.
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After you upload your video, you can add captions to it.
- On your computer, sign in to drive.google.com.
- Click the video that you want to add captions to.
- Click More
Manage caption tracks.
- Click Add new caption tracks.
- Click Select file and choose a caption or transcript file.
- Choose the language for the captions and a name for the track.
- Click Upload.
Manage caption tracks.- On your computer, sign in to drive.google.com.
- Click the video file with caption tracks that you want to edit.
- Click More
- Click the caption track that you want to edit.
- Click Edit.
- You can edit its name and language. You can also turn on or off the track for the video.
- Click Save.
- On your computer, sign in to drive.google.com.
- Click the video file with caption tracks that you want to delete.
- Click More
- Next to the caption track that you want to delete, click Delete
.
- Click Delete.
After the caption tracks to your videos are processed, you can translate them.
- On your computer, sign in to drive.google.com.
- Open the video with the caption track that you want to translate.
- At the bottom right, click Settings
.
- At the bottom of the language list, click Auto-translate.
- Select a language from the list.
.The video's sharing settings also apply to captions. If someone else can edit the video, they can also upload, download and edit captions for the video. Learn more about sharing files in Google Drive.
If you get an error while uploading your file, make sure that the file is:
- In the correct format. The file types listed under basic, advanced and broadcast file types on this page are supported.
- Not too large. The caption file must be less than 2 MB.
- Not longer than the video. If the file is longer than the video, the video won't be able to auto-sync.
