Short answer: in Chrome on Windows or Mac, select More (the three dots at the top right), then Settings, then Accessibility, and turn on Live Caption. Chrome then writes captions for speech in videos, podcasts, live streams, video calls and other audio playing in the browser. They appear in a small bubble you can drag around. Google says the audio and captions are processed on your device, are never stored and never leave it. These steps are from Google’s Chrome Help.
Turn Live Caption on or off
Windows and Mac
- Open Chrome.
- Select More, then Settings, then Accessibility.
- Turn Live Caption on or off.
Linux
- Open Chrome.
- Select More, then Settings, then Accessibility.
- Select Captions.
- Turn Live Caption on or off.
Chromebook
- Open Chrome.
- Select More, then Settings, then Accessibility.
- Select Manage accessibility features, then Audio and captions.
- Turn Live Caption on or off.
Tips for using Live Caption
- Captions don’t appear on a video that started by itself: turn on the video’s sound.
- Captions for all videos: you can also turn them on from Media control at the top right of Chrome.
- Move the captions: drag the bubble to where you want it.
- Make the bubble smaller: use the arrow in the bubble to collapse or expand it.
- Go back to the tab that is playing: select Back to tab in the bubble.
Captions in a language other than English
- Go to Settings, then Accessibility (on Linux, then Captions).
- Next to Manage languages, select Add languages. Chrome downloads the language packs it needs.
- Next to Preferred caption language, choose your language.
Translate captions with Live Translate
Live Translate turns the captions into another language. Unlike Live Caption, it works by sending the captions to Google to be translated.
- Go to Settings, then Accessibility (on Linux, then Captions).
- Turn Live Translate on.
- Next to Translate to, choose the language you want to read.
When Live Caption is on, Live Translate also shows up inside the caption bubble.
Change the caption font, size and color
On Windows, Mac and Linux, Chrome uses your computer’s own caption settings:
- Go to Settings, then Accessibility (on Linux, then Captions).
- Select Caption preferences. This opens your computer’s system settings.
- Choose the font, size and color you want there.
On a Chromebook, the choices are under Manage accessibility features, then Audio and captions, then Caption preferences.
Live captions on Android and iPhone
On a phone, live captions come from the device itself rather than from Chrome, so they work for Chrome and every other app.
- Android: press a volume button, then under the volume controls tap More, then Live Caption, then Done. If you don’t see it, search your Settings app for “Live Caption”. It isn’t on every Android phone; see Google’s Live Caption help for which phones and languages it supports.
- iPhone: open the Settings app, tap Accessibility, then Live Captions, and turn it on. Apple says it needs an iPhone 11 or later and isn’t available in every language or region; see Apple’s Live Captions guide.