How to use TikTok's auto caption feature to enable captions on your own videos or hide captions from videos you're viewing
- TikTok's auto caption feature aims to make the video-sharing app more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Creators can enable or disable auto captions on their own TikTok videos with a single tap, or edit the text of the captions if needed.
- TikTok viewers can hide or display auto captions on applicable videos at any time.
With much of our social and professional lives happening online these days, inclusivity for people who are differently abled or who have certain disabilities or limitations has never been more important.
For this reason, TikTok introduced auto captions, a feature that aims to make the popular video-sharing app more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Auto captions automatically generate subtitles for videos, allowing viewers to read what's being said.
How to turn on auto captions on your own TikTok videos
If you're a TikTok creator and want to turn auto captions on, doing so is straightforward.
1. After creating a new video or uploading a previously created one, tap the check mark to enable editing mode.
2. On the editing page, tap the Captions option on the right side of the screen to enable captions.
3. TikTok will generate captions for spoken words in your video and display them beneath a smaller version of the video for review purposes. Check to ensure that the words are correct. If they are, you can go ahead and tap Save. If not, see our section below on editing captions.
4. On the next page, tap Post to publish the video with captions enabled.
Note that the caption process can take a few moments depending on the length of your video. In addition, only spoken words will be captioned; music will not be translated.
How to edit captions on your own TikTok videos
You can edit auto captions from the page depicted in step three in the section above.
1. From the caption display page, tap the edit button, which looks like a small line with a pencil hovering over it to the right of the Captions header, or tap an individual line of captions.
2. Fix any misspellings, correct incorrect words, or separate lines that look too long, and tap Save.
3. Tap Save when you're happy with how your captions look, and proceed to tap Post to publish the video.
How to turn off auto captions on a TikTok video you're viewing
While many people find captions useful or necessary when watching TikTok videos, not everyone loves or needs the feature. If you prefer to enjoy content without auto captions, you can disable them.
1. When watching a TikTok video, tap one one of the captions as it pops up on the screen.
2. A small bubble will appear above or below the caption. Tap Hide captions. The captions will then disappear behind a small text box.
You can re-enable auto captions by tapping on the small text box video which indicates that captions are available.
