How to add captions to TikTok videos for free

Captions make a TikTok easier to follow when the sound is off, when the speaker talks fast, or when viewers aren't fluent in your language. This guide walks through adding captions for free, checking them for mistakes, and exporting a video that's ready to upload.

Two ways to caption a TikTok

There are two broad approaches, and they're worth understanding before you start:

Burned-in (open) captions are drawn into the video pixels. They look the same everywhere: in the TikTok app, when the video is shared to other apps, or saved to someone's phone. You control the font, size, colors and animation. The trade-off is that viewers can't turn them off.
Platform captions (closed captions) are added inside TikTok, either with its automatic captions feature or by editing the generated text. They can usually be switched on or off by viewers, but you have less control over how they look, and they don't travel with the video if you post the same file elsewhere.

Many creators use burned-in captions for style and consistency, and some also turn on the platform's captions for accessibility. Both are valid. This guide focuses on burned-in captions, because that's where a dedicated tool helps most.

Step 1: Prepare your clip

Edit your video first (trim, cut and arrange your clips), then caption the final version. If you caption a draft and then change the edit, the timing of every word will be wrong. A few practical tips:

Export your edit as an MP4 or MOV in the same orientation you'll post: vertical 9:16 for TikTok.
Keep the audio clear. Background music that's louder than your voice makes automatic transcription less accurate. If you can, lower the music under speech.
Shorter is easier. Saynetic handles videos up to three minutes, which covers most TikToks.

Step 2: Transcribe the speech automatically

Open Saynetic and drop your video onto the page. Choose a speech model: Fast works well on phones, Accurate is better for unclear audio. Then press Transcribe. The first time, the browser downloads the speech model once; after that it's stored on your device and loads instantly.

Transcription runs on your own computer or phone. Your video isn't uploaded to a server, which also means you don't need an account and there's no waiting in a queue. Every word gets its own start and end time, which is what makes word-by-word animated captions possible.

Step 3: Fix mistakes in the transcript

Automatic transcription is good but not perfect. It struggles most with names, brand names, slang, and people talking over each other. Read through the transcript once while the video plays:

Click a word to fix its spelling. The preview updates instantly.
If a caption appears too early or too late, use the start and end time fields, or the Playhead buttons to set a time from the current video position.
Use Insert after, Merge with next and Split for words that were missed, combined or broken apart.
If every caption is slightly late, the Shift all buttons move all words together.

It's worth the minute this takes. A caption with a typo is more distracting than no caption at all, and viewers notice wrong names immediately.

Step 4: Choose a caption style that fits

Go to the Style tab and try the presets on your own video. For TikTok, a few things matter more than anything else:

Legibility on a small screen. Bold, heavy fonts with an outline or a background box stay readable over busy footage.
Short chunks. Two to three words at a time (like the Pop or Emoji Pop presets) suit fast, punchy speech. Longer lines (like Karaoke or Clean) suit slower, conversational videos.
Position. TikTok places buttons, your username and the video description over parts of the screen. Captions placed in the lower-middle or center of the frame are less likely to be covered than captions at the very bottom or along the right edge. Preview your video in the app before posting to check.

You can change the font size, text color, highlight color and position, and save your tweaked version as a custom preset so every video in a series looks consistent.

Step 5: Optional extras

Emojis: turn on automatic emojis to add a small emoji next to keywords like “pizza” or “money”. You can change or remove any of them by tapping a word with the Emoji tool.
Censoring: if your video has swearing, the Censor tab can mask words in the captions and bleep them in the audio. See our guide to censoring swear words.
Horizontal footage: if your clip was filmed landscape, the Effects tab can place it in a 9:16 frame with a blurred background. See how to make a horizontal video vertical.

Step 6: Export and upload

Open the Export tab and press Export MP4. Keep the tab open while it renders. When it's done, the video downloads with the captions burned in. Upload it to TikTok as you normally would.

If you also want to add TikTok's own captions, you can download an SRT file from the same tab and use its text as a reference while editing captions in the app.

Common problems and fixes

Captions are covered by the TikTok interface: move them to the middle position, or reduce the font size slightly.
Words are wrong in noisy parts: switch to the Accurate model and transcribe again, then correct the rest by hand.
The export is slow: exporting depends on your device's speed. Close other heavy tabs, keep the browser in the foreground, and plug in your laptop if it's on battery.

Why bother with captions at all?

Captions help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, viewers watching with the sound off, and viewers who find it easier to follow along by reading. Many creators also find captions help people stay with a video for longer. For more on that, read why captions can help watch time.