How to use video captions on TikTok

Learn how to use automated and manual captions on TikTok.

Switch on automated captions

Automated captions are only available for some content. To display these captions:

Long press on a clear part of the screen to bring up the menu

Select ‘Captions’

Toggle right the ‘Show captions’ option.

If automatically generated captions are not available for a video, the label for the ‘Show captions’ option is displayed as ‘Show captions (unavailable)’. The setting can still be changed but captions won’t be shown for the video you are editing.

Create captions

TikTok has the ability to autogenerate captions, but in our tests it only works on the mobile app, not on the web interface accessed on a computer.

They also only seem to be created when you choose to overlay captions manually. The option to overlay captions is available when videos are recorded by tapping one for the timed record options, not when pressing and holding the record button.

Manual captions

Select the ‘+’ icon and record or upload your video.

The main post editing screen has a series of icons down the right hand side, you may need to click the down icon so that all the options are visible.

Select the captions icon and wait for a few seconds while the audio is uploaded and processed.

Select the pencil icon to edit the caption text, including splitting it into smaller chunks, if required.

Select the ‘A’ icon to adjust the appearance of the captions. Ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the text and background so that it is easy to read by everyone.