How to Enable (or Disable) TikTok Auto Captions

Video subtitles are important. For starters, they can be a vital accessibility tool for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. Additionally, captioning can be useful for people who are in environments where they cannot use audio and/or do not have headphones available. Or who (like me) sometimes likes to chat during videos and use captions to keep track of what's being said.

Before TikTok added automatic captions to its app in April this year, many TikTok creators added captions to their TikTok videos manually, either through the text feature of the application or by using third-party applications. However, this is no longer necessary – the automatic captioning feature is now part of TikTok, thanks to organizations such as Le Collectif des Sourds, which worked with TikTok to develop the feature.

It is therefore a good idea to activate automatic subtitles for all your videos. And don't worry:if someone watching one of your videos would rather not have the captions on, they can easily turn them off (we'll get to that in a bit).

How to activate subtitling

• After creating or uploading your video, check the box to indicate that you are ready to start working on it. You will now be in the first edit page.
• Find the "Legends" icon on the right side of the screen and tap it.
• The first time you enable captions, you'll get a screen that explains how they work and asks you to consent to "audio collection and use".

• Depending on the length of your video and the power of your phone, it may take a few moments for TikTok to process your captions. Keep in mind that automatic captions will not work for sung music that has been added to your video; this is for speech only.
• Once your audio has been processed, you will be taken to a screen containing a smaller version of the video with captions listed below.
• If you're happy with the captions, hit the "Save" button in the top right corner.
• If you are not satisfied with them – because there are spelling mistakes or bad words – you can modify them. Tap the edit icon (looks like a pencil and a piece of paper) to the right of the word "Captions". You can then use your phone's keypad to edit any textual issues.

• You can also split lines that you think are too long, but you cannot join lines that you think are too short. If you accidentally split a line and change your mind, you'll need to hit the back button on your phone, undo your changes, and try again.
• Press "Save" when finished.

Unfortunately, you can't style your captions - you're pretty much stuck with what you get, which tends to be white letters on a slightly dark rectangle. If you want to get fancy with your subtitles, you'll need to turn off the auto-caption feature (using the same subtitle icon) and use the Text feature (found at the bottom of the screen) editing) to manually create subtitles in a variety of colors, sizes, and characters.

Disable subtitles for the videos you watch

I personally like having captions on videos, but some people find them distracting. If you don't want subtitles on your TikTok videos, you can turn them off. (Of course, you won't actually get rid of them, you'll just hide them on your device.)

• While watching a subtitled video, tap the caption, then tap "Hide Subtitles".
• Automatic subtitles will not be disabled for all videos you watch. There will be a small rectangle on the side of each video to indicate that it normally has subtitles.
• If you want to turn the subtitles back on, just press this rectangle.

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