How to Add Auto Subtitles to a Video in Submagic

Upload a clip to Submagic and generate accurate auto-captions in a couple of minutes.

6 minBeginner

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Submagic is built for short-form vertical video, and its core job is turning spoken audio into styled, animated captions. This guide walks you from a raw upload to a fully captioned clip you can export. No editing experience required.

A Submagic account (free trial works)
A video file under your plan limit, ideally vertical 9:16
Clear speech audio in a supported language

Step 1: Create a new project

From the dashboard click New Project, then drag your video file into the upload area or paste a link from your drive. Submagic accepts MP4 and MOV files. Wait for the upload bar to finish before moving on.

Submagic - New Project

+ New Project

[ Drag a video here or click to browse ]

Accepted: .mp4 .mov Max length: 30 min

Recently uploaded: hook-take-3.mp4 (uploading 84%)

The upload screen with drag-and-drop and a file picker.

Step 2: Pick the spoken language

After upload, Submagic asks which language is spoken in the clip. Getting this right is the single biggest factor in transcription accuracy, so choose the actual spoken language rather than the language you want captions in. Then click Get Subtitles.

Step 3: Let it transcribe

Submagic runs speech-to-text and lays the words onto the timeline as word-level captions. A 60 second clip usually finishes in well under a minute. When it lands you will see captions appear on the preview in the center of the editor.

Submagic - Editor

[ Preview 9:16 ] so HERE is the trick

Timeline: |so|here|is|the|trick|nobody|tells|you|

Templates Emojis B-roll Sound FX Export

Captions appear over the video preview with a word timeline below.

Step 4: Scan for transcription errors

Play the clip once and watch for misheard words, brand names, and numbers, which are the usual offenders. Click any word in the caption track to edit its text directly. Fixes here carry through to every export.

Tip

If a proper noun keeps getting mangled, type it once correctly and use the editor search to confirm it did not appear wrong anywhere else in the script.

Step 5: Export

Hit Export, choose 1080p, and download the rendered MP4 with captions burned in. If you would rather keep captions as a separate file, see the SRT export guide in this series.

Result: a 45 second vertical clip went from raw footage to captioned and exported in about four minutes, with only two words needing a manual fix.