Manage captions and translations in Chrome

You can generate captions and send them to Google to translate videos, podcasts, games, live streams, video calls, or other audio media from Chrome browser.

Turn Live Caption on or off

The audio and captions are processed locally and stay on the device.

Windows or Mac
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Turn Live Caption on or off.
    • If you want to get Live Captions in a language other than English:
      1. Next to “Manage languages,” select Add languages.
        • This will automatically download language packs.
      2. Next to “Preferred caption language,” select Down arrow Down arrow and then your preferred language.
Linux
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Captions.
  4. Turn Live Caption on or off.
    • If you want to get Live Captions in a language other than English:
      1. Next to “Manage languages,” select Add languages.
        • This will automatically download language packs.
      2. Next to “Preferred caption language,” select the Down arrow Down arrow and then your preferred language.
Chromebook
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Manage accessibility features and then Audio and captions.
  4. Turn Live Caption on or off.

Tips:

  • To turn on captions for all videos, at the top right, select Media control Media control.
  • To use live captions for videos that autoplay, turn on the video volume.
  • Live Captions will appear in a bubble that you can drag. To return to the tab with audio, select .

Turn Live Translate on or off

You can send captions to Google to automatically translate them.

Chromebook Plus

Supported languages:

You can translate from different supported Live Caption languages such as English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish to over 100+ languages found in the "Translate captions to" drop down.

To translate to supported languages:

  1. On your computer, open Settings.
  2. On the side bar, select Accessibility and then Audio and captions.
  3. Turn on Live Caption.
  4. From the “Supported Live Caption languages,” add any additional languages you want to caption.
    • The languages are used to caption and translate content. For example if you want to translate from Spanish to English, make sure Spanish is available here.
    • When you choose a default language, it becomes the initial language that Live Caption uses. This should match the audio you would typically listen to the most. If there’s no set default, it uses the other languages on the list.
  5. Turn on Live Translate.
  6. Set the language you want to get captions in "Translate captions to."
    • If you want to translate content from another language to English, set it to English. Make sure you have the language included in the “Supported Live Caption languages” section.

Tips:

  • If you want to get Live Translate in a language other than English, next to “Translate caption to,” select Down and then your preferred language.
  • When you turn on this feature, it uses more power than normal. You should plug in your Chromebook while you use Live Translate.
  • If Live Translate is on, it still remains on when you turn on Live Caption again. To turn on Live Caption again, you can either:
    • Turn on with Settings:
      1. On your Computer, open Settings.
      2. Select Accessibility and then Audio and captions.
    • Turn on with Quick Settings:
      1. At the bottom right, select the time.
      2. Turn on Live Caption subtitle off.
Windows or Mac
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Turn Live Translate on or off.
    • If you want to get Live Translate in a language other than English:
      • Next to “Translate to,” select Down arrow Down arrow and then your preferred language.
Linux
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Captions.
  4. Turn Live Translate on or off.
    • If you want to get Live Translate in a language other than English:
      • Next to “Translate to,” select Down arrow Down arrow and then your preferred language.

Tips:

  • When Live Caption is on, Live Translate automatically appears in the Live Caption bubble.
  • When you select Translating from the Live Caption bubble, you’ll go to the caption setting.
    • If Live Translate isn't turned on, select the name of the audio’s language.
  • To select a language when Live Caption is on and you use Media control Media control:
    1. Turn Live Translate on.
    2. Select your preferred language.

Manage your captions

You can customize your captions for Live Caption in Chrome to make them easier to read. You can:

  • Collapse and expand captions with the arrow in the Live Caption bubble.
  • Select the captions to move them to your preferred place on your browser.
  • Change your caption font, size, and color.
Change fonts on Windows or Mac
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Caption preferences.
  4. In your computer's system preferences, select your preferred font.
Change fonts on Linux
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Captions and then Caption preferences.
  4. On your computer’s system preferences, select your preferred font.
Change fonts on Chromebook
  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, select More More and then Settings and then Accessibility.
  3. Select Manage accessibility features and then Audio and captions.
  4. Under “Caption preferences,” next to “Text font,” select your preferred font.

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