Add video captions or subtitles

Prepare the caption file

Simple caption formats that are compatible with the formats known as SubViewer (*.SUB) and SubRip (*.SRT) are supported. Although you can upload your captions/subtitles in any format, only supported formats will be displayed properly on the playback page.

Here are some common captioning practice that help readability:

  • Descriptions inside square brackets like [music] or [laughter] can help people with hearing disabilities to understand what is happening in your video.
  • You can also add tags like >> at the beginning of a new line to identify speakers or change of speaker.

You can obtain software to let you create these files, or ask other companies to do this for you, often for a small fee. Learn more about how to create caption and transcript files.

Upload the caption file

Add a caption to a video you've uploaded to Google+ with these steps:

  1. Open the video in the lightbox view.
  2. Click the Options menu in the lower left.
  3. Select Closed captions, a "Closed captions" menu will appear to the right of the video.
  4. Click the Add new captions or transcript button.
  5. Select the caption file you'd like to add, choose a language, and click the Upload button. You can upload one file for each language.

To change a caption file you've already uploaded, you'll need to delete the existing file using the X at the end of row and upload the new version of the file.

Error messages

If you received an error while uploading your file, check if the file is:

  • In the correct format. We support formats that are compatible with known formats SubViewer(*SUB) and SubRip (*SRT).
  • Too big. Your file needs to be less than 2MB.
  • Longer than the video. If the transcript file or caption track is longer than the video, the auto-syncing feature won't work properly.