Manage subtitle settings

Captions (subtitles) are available on videos where the owner has added them, and on some videos where YouTube automatically adds them. You can change the default settings for captions on your computer or mobile device.

Caption settings on YouTube

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You can customise captions by changing their appearance and language.

Turn captions on or off

1. Go to the video that you'd like to watch.
2. If closed captions (CC) are available, will be visible on the bottom right of the video player.
3. To turn on captions, click .
4. To turn off captions, click  again.

Turn default setting to on or off

1. Click your profile picture .
2. Click Settings .
3. From the left-hand menu, click Playback and performance.
4. Tick or untick Always show captions.
5. Tick or untick Include auto-generated captions (when available). This option turns on or off automatic captions for videos that don't have captions added.

Change default size and style of captions

1. At the bottom right of the video player, click Settings .
2. Click Subtitles/CC.
3. Click Options.

​You can customise:

• Font, colour, opacity and size.
• Background colour and opacity.
• Window colour and opacity.
• Character edge style.

Note: These settings will be your default captions format settings until you change them again or click Reset to go back to the default captions format.

View captions transcript

For most videos with captions, you can view the full captions transcript and jump to specific parts of the video.

1. Go to the video description, and click Show transcript. As you watch the video, the transcript will scroll to show you the current caption text.

2. Click any line of caption text to jump to that part of the video.

Note: Some videos will allow you to search by typing specific keywords in the search bar at the top of the transcript.

Caption settings on TV and game consoles

You can select or change your caption settings on any TV, game console or media device that supports YouTube.

1. Pause the video that you're playing.
2. Tap Captions .
3. Select the language that you want captions in.
4. Select Caption style.
5. Select the settings that you want to customise. You can change the font and its appearance. You can also change the background and window that the captions are displayed in.

Note: If the video doesn't offer captions,  might show but won't be selectable. If  isn't shown, captions aren't available for that video.