Captions & transcript

Add captions and subtitles to a screen recording on your Mac: transcribed on-device, styled in one click, and saved as SRT or VTT files.

Add captions to a screen recording on your Mac #

To add captions and subtitles to a screen recording, ScreenCameo listens to it and writes down every word with its timing. Your speech is transcribed on your Mac, and nothing is uploaded.

1. Press Esc so nothing is selected, then click Captions in the toolbar, or press Cmd+6.
2. Choose the Spoken language: the language you speak in the recording.
3. Click Generate Captions, or press Shift+Cmd+T. Every clip with sound is transcribed, including videos you added.
4. When it’s done, captions show on the preview and a Captions lane appears on the timeline. The top of the tab shows how many captions there are, and their language.
5. To make them again from the audio, click Regenerate… at the top. It asks first.

Pick a caption style #

1. Under Show captions, pick In the video to burn the captions into the exported video. Or pick Subtitles file only to keep the video clean and save a subtitle file instead.
2. Pick a group: For product demos has 7 calm styles, and For social clips has 10 loud ones. A dot marks the group of the style you use.
3. Click a tile. Each tile is drawn exactly as it will export, and a tick marks the one in use.
4. To reuse a look on other recordings, click Save Look… and name it. It appears under Your caption looks. Right-click it to update or delete it.

All 17 styles

Change the font, size, colors and animation #

1. Open Look. Pick a Font and drag Size, from 70% to 150% of the style’s size. The included fonts look the same on every Mac, and fonts on this Mac are listed too.
2. Under Colours, pick the Text color and the Accent: the word being said, Neon’s glow or the phrase bar. The last swatch picks any color, and your brand colors come first.
3. Under Animation, turn off Highlight the spoken word for calm captions with no color or box jumping between words. Some people find that easier to read.
4. Entrance sets how captions arrive: Fade, Slide, Pop, Typewriter, Bounce or None. Style’s own keeps the style’s natural motion.
5. Click More for the Box and Outline colors, how captions leave (Exit), and Spoken word grows, which makes the word being said a little bigger.

Place captions and keep them in the safe zone #

1. Open Position and click a Place tile: Bottom, Middle or Top.
2. To place them exactly, pause and drag the caption on the preview. Double-click it, or click Put Back in Place, to undo the drag.
3. Making a vertical video? Under Safe zone for vertical video, click TikTok, Reels or Shorts. Captions stay clear of that app’s buttons and text, and a dashed frame shows the safe area while you’re paused.
4. With a camera bubble, turn on Keep clear of the camera. Captions move up when they would cover it.

Choose how many words show and which stand out #

1. Open Words. Under Words per caption, pick 1 word, 2–3 words, Phrase or Sentence. Each style has its own choice until you pick one.
2. Turn on Pick keywords automatically to give numbers, prices, names and key nouns the Keyword colour, one per caption.
3. To choose a keyword yourself, move the playhead to a caption and click the word. Click once to make it a keyword, again to keep it plain, and again to let the app decide.
4. Turn on Add emoji to put a matching emoji on captions with words like launch, money or idea.

Fix a wrong word #

1. Open Text. Every caption is listed in the order it plays.
2. Type in Find a word to show only the captions that have it.
3. Click a caption’s text to fix it in place. Word timings are kept, so word-by-word styles still follow your voice.
4. Click a caption’s time to jump there and select it.

Edit one caption #

1. Click a caption on the Captions lane, or its time under Text, to select it. The inspector shows its text, keywords, timing and This caption’s look.
2. Under Timing, click Split at Playhead to make two captions where the playhead is. Click Join with Next to join it with the one after it.
3. Drag a caption’s edges on the timeline to change when it shows. Drag its middle to move it.
4. Give just this caption its own Style, or its own Place. Same as all captions and Same keep it with the others.
5. Click Delete Caption to remove it, or All Caption Settings… to go back to the Captions tab.

Teach it your product names #

Transcription can misspell product names and jargon. Add them under Words to recognise, in Words or before you make captions.

1. Type the name spelled your way, for example “ScreenCameo”.
2. After a comma, add what it’s often heard as: “ScreenCameo, screen cameo”. Click Add.
3. The list is used every time captions are made, on every recording. Click the × on a word to remove it.

Cut your video by editing words #

The transcript lets you cut the video like a document. Delete words, and that part of the video goes too.

1. Open Text and click Edit by Transcript…. Your words appear as text, with each clip in its own paragraph.
2. Click a word to jump the video there. Shift-click another word to select everything in between.
3. Press Delete, or click Cut Selection, to cut those words from the video. Cut words stay visible, struck through.
4. Filler words such as “um” and “uh” are orange. Click Remove filler words to cut them all at once. The button says how many it found.
5. Click Done, or press Return.

Translate captions and export SRT or VTT files #

1. Open Languages, click Translate… and choose a language. It runs on your Mac.
2. Under Show captions in, switch between Original and your translations. Translated captions keep their timing, so word styles still follow your voice.
3. Open Export and click Subtitles .srt for YouTube and most players, or Subtitles .vtt for web players. Click Transcript .txt for the words as plain text.

Shortcuts on this page#

See every shortcut

If something’s off#

It says “There’s no audio to caption”

The recording has no voice or Mac sound. Record with your microphone on, or add a video with sound. See Audio & music.

It says “No speech was found”

Check that Spoken language matches what you speak, then click Regenerate….

A product name is spelled wrong every time

Add it under Words to recognise, then click Regenerate…. Or fix it once under Text.

My exported video has no captions

Under Show captions, pick In the video. Subtitles file only keeps them out of the video.