How to Import an SRT File into Premiere Pro

Before you import: subtitles that match the cut

An SRT is a list of numbered cues, each with a start time, an end time and one or more lines of text. Premiere places each cue at its time on the timeline, so the file has to be made from the same edit you are importing it into. Subtitles generated from a rough cut drift as soon as you trim a pause at the start.

The safest order is to lock the edit, export the audio or the finished video, and make the subtitles from that export. If you generate them with the subtitle generator, upload the final export; the video stays in your browser and only its audio is sent. If you need a refresher on the file itself, what an SRT file is covers the structure.

Import the SRT and place it

1. In Premiere Pro, choose File > Import (or press Ctrl+I on Windows, Cmd+I on a Mac) and select the .srt file. It appears in the Project panel as a captions item.
2. Drag it onto the timeline above your video tracks. Premiere creates a caption track and lays out each cue at its timecode.
3. If the sequence starts at a timecode other than zero, or the export you subtitled had a leader, move the whole caption item so its first cue lines up with the first spoken word.
4. Play a few spots near the start, the middle and the end. If the first line is right but later lines slide, the subtitle file and the sequence don't match; see the timing section below.

Newer versions of Premiere also show captions in a dedicated text or captions panel, where you can read every cue as a list, search it and jump to any line. That view is the fastest place to correct spellings and names.

Fix long lines and timing

Automatic subtitles often come as one line per cue, sometimes a long one. Premiere displays what the file contains, so a 90-character line will run across most of the frame. Split long cues in the captions panel: put the cursor where the sentence breaks naturally and split the cue, or add a line break inside it. The articles on subtitle segmentation and subtitle timing guidelines explain where breaks read best and how long a cue should stay on screen.

Premiere works in frames, while an SRT is measured in milliseconds, so cue edges snap to the nearest frame. That is invisible to viewers. A visible problem looks different: every line is early or late by the same amount (an offset you can fix by moving the track), or the gap grows over the video (the file came from a different cut or frame rate).

Style the captions

Select the caption track or individual cues and use the properties or Essential Graphics controls to set font, size, colour, background box and position. A few choices hold up across devices:

• A plain sans-serif typeface at a size that stays readable on a phone.
• A semi-opaque background box or a strong outline, so text survives bright shots.
• Bottom-centre placement, moved up only when it would cover on-screen text. The article on subtitle positioning covers the exceptions.

Styling applies to burned-in subtitles and to some embedded formats. A sidecar SRT carries no styling at all; the player decides how it looks.

Export: sidecar file or burned in

In the export settings, the captions section offers a few routes:

Sidecar file

Exports the subtitles as a separate .srt (or another caption format) next to the video. Viewers can turn them on and off, and platforms like YouTube take them as a track.

Burn captions into video

Renders the text into the picture. Everyone sees it, on every platform, with your styling, but nobody can turn it off or fix a typo without re-exporting.

Embedded

Some formats can carry a caption stream inside the file; support varies by format and player.

For platforms that accept caption files, export a sidecar and upload it separately; you keep the ability to correct a line in seconds. Burn in for social feeds where viewers watch on mute and caption uploads aren't available. The comparison of open and closed captions goes deeper into that choice.

Where mydubly fits, and its limits

mydubly makes the SRT and VTT files; Premiere does the rest. A run returns subtitles in the spoken language or translated into one of 21 languages, from a file up to 2 hours long. The limits worth knowing before you import:

• Cues follow the speech recognizer's segments, one line each, with no fixed maximum length, so plan to split long ones.
• There are no speaker labels or sound descriptions; add those in Premiere if you need captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.
• Each run produces one language. For a second language, run the video again and import a second caption track.

For a second language, Premiere can hold several caption tracks in one sequence, and you can export each as its own sidecar file. Translated subtitles explains costs and reading speed across languages.

A checklist before you publish

• Play the sequence with captions on at the start, the middle and the last minute. Timing problems hide in the second half.
• Search the captions for every name, product and place in the video, and fix spellings once with find and replace rather than cue by cue.
• Check that no caption covers a lower third, a chart label or a burned-in title, and move those cues up.
• If you exported a sidecar, open it in a text editor and confirm it reads correctly; how to edit an SRT file covers safe manual fixes if something slipped.
• For two languages on one video, decide whether viewers need both at once; dual-language subtitles explains when stacking two lines helps and when it overwhelms.