Free Subtitle Generator: SRT and VTT from Any Video

How to generate subtitles

1. Upload your video. Drop an mp4, mov or webm file (or the audio track on its own). Pick the spoken language, or leave it on auto-detect.
2. Wave transcribes it with timestamps. Every line of speech gets a start and end time, so the text lines up with the moment it was said.
3. Download .srt or .vtt. When the transcript is ready, the Download .srt and Download .vtt buttons appear next to it. Both are plain text files any editor can open.

How to add the SRT file to your video

An SRT file is a separate captions track: it sits next to the video instead of being drawn into the picture. Viewers can switch it on and off, and you can edit any line in a text editor before you upload it.

How accurate is the timing?

• Start and end times come from the speech recognizer itself, measured to the millisecond, so each caption appears when its words are spoken rather than being spread evenly across the video.
• Each caption is one speaker turn. Quick back-and-forth dialogue gives short captions; one person talking for a minute without a pause gives one long caption. Split long ones in your editor if you want two-line subtitles.
• Speaker names are not written into the file, so the captions read as plain dialogue.
• Clear speech gives the best results. Loud music, heavy crosstalk or a distant microphone lower accuracy, so give the captions a quick read before you publish.

Languages

Choose from 15 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, or let the tool detect the language. Captions are written in the language that is spoken; the tool does not translate them.

Common questions