Add Subtitles to a Video on a Mac

What a Mac gives you out of the box

Two Apple apps come to mind first, and neither was designed for subtitles. iMovie, free on recent Macs, works with titles: blocks of styled text you lay over a clip and stretch to the length you want. It has no way to import a subtitle file, so a ten-minute interview means creating and timing dozens of titles one at a time. If you'd rather stay in Apple's editor anyway, adding subtitles in iMovie shows the title-by-title method.

QuickTime Player plays subtitle tracks that are already inside a file, usually chosen from its View menu, but it can't open a separate SRT and has no way to draw text into the picture. Apple reshapes both apps from one macOS release to the next, so treat these descriptions as a snapshot and check what your own version offers.

Mac options compared

iMovie

Free from Apple. Hand-placed titles in a fixed set of styles, no SRT or VTT import. Comfortable for a caption or two inside a project you are already cutting; slow for a full transcript.

QuickTime Player

Built into macOS. Shows subtitle tracks a file already carries during playback. Can't load an SRT and can't burn subtitles into the picture.

HandBrake

Free, open-source converter with a Mac version. Reads an SRT and either burns it into the picture or adds it as a track viewers can switch. You can't write or correct the text in it, and burned SRT text gets little styling.

Final Cut Pro

Apple's paid editor. Recent versions import SRT and iTT caption files onto the timeline, let you edit and restyle them, and can burn captions into an export. A natural choice if you already edit there.

DaVinci Resolve

A free edition plus a paid Studio version. Its subtitle track takes imported SRT files, styling and burn-in at render, inside a full editing and colour suite with the learning curve that comes with it.

The editor on this page

Runs in a browser tab. Subtitles from AI, an SRT or VTT file or typing; text and timing corrected on a timeline; 8 presets and 19 fonts; a burned-in MP4 rendered on your Mac. Nothing to install, though it needs an internet connection to load.

Features and prices of the desktop apps change between versions, so check the developer's own pages before you settle on one.

Which one fits your job

None of them wins outright; the right pick follows from what you already have and what you want at the end.

• Cutting a film or vlog anyway? Keep the subtitles in the same project. The Final Cut Pro guide covers SRT import there, and DaVinci Resolve's subtitle track is available in its free edition.
• Want a switchable track inside the file rather than words in the picture? HandBrake can add one, and its SRT steps cover that case. The editor here always burns subtitles in and hands you the soft copy as a separate SRT or VTT file.
• Need the text itself written, corrected or retimed, with a styled MP4 at the end and no editing suite to learn? That is the job the browser editor below was built for.
• Holding a format the editor doesn't open, such as AVI? Convert it with HandBrake first, then come back.

Which Mac browsers can render

Editing lines and exporting SRT or VTT work in any current browser. Rendering the finished video relies on the browser's built-in video encoder, and on macOS the qualifying browsers are:

• Safari 16.4 or later. Safari is updated with macOS through Software Update; choose Safari, then About Safari, to see your version.
• Chrome or Edge 94 or later.
• Firefox 130 or later.

Whether rendering works depends on the browser version rather than on the chip, so Apple silicon and Intel Macs follow the same rule. How fast it goes depends on the Mac, the length of the video and its resolution. If the editor reports that your browser can't render, the subtitles and the SRT export still work, and you can render later from an updated browser.

Step by step in Safari or Chrome

1. Get the video into a Finder folder. A clip sent by AirDrop lands in Downloads; a clip that lives in the Photos library needs exporting first, as described below.
2. Open the editor on this page and click Choose video, or drag the file from a Finder window onto the drop area. MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM and MKV files open.
3. Decide where the words come from: leave "Write the subtitles automatically with AI" on (Google sign-in, 1 credit per minute of video), click Import SRT / VTT, or pause and press Enter to type a line at the playhead.
4. Play it through and correct as you go. Space pauses, the arrow keys step a second at a time, and Cmd+Z undoes a slip.
5. Open Style, choose a preset and set the position. Turn on "Show safe area" for a vertical clip headed to Reels or TikTok.
6. Click Render video, read the "Ready to render" summary, start the render and leave the tab open.
7. Click Download video. Safari and Chrome save to Downloads unless you've changed that, and the file keeps its original name with -subtitled.mp4 added.

iPhone and Photos footage on a Mac

Most iPhone video is HEVC (H.265) inside a MOV file, and recent models often record in HDR. This is how the editor treats it:

• Opening. The file opens only if your browser can decode its video. Safari on a Mac normally handles HEVC; in other browsers it varies with version and hardware. When it can't, the editor says "This browser can't decode HEVC video. Try converting it to MP4 (H.264) first." Trying Safari, or converting with the MOV to MP4 tool, gets you past it.
• Output codec. The subtitled copy is H.264 whenever the browser can encode it at that size, which almost every player accepts. Otherwise the editor falls back to HEVC, VP9 or AV1 and tells you so in the summary before you start.
• HDR. HDR footage comes out in standard dynamic range, and the summary warns that colours may look slightly different.
• Orientation and size. A portrait clip stays portrait, at its original resolution and frame rate.

To take a clip out of Photos, select it and use File, then Export. The option to export the unmodified original keeps the recording exactly as the iPhone made it, while the regular export applies edits such as trims; menu wording shifts a little between macOS versions. HEVC compatibility explains why some players stumble on H.265, and subtitling iPhone video goes deeper into rotation and HDR.

Mac snags and their fixes

• A subtitle file written in TextEdit. TextEdit saves rich text by default, which is not a subtitle file. Choose Format, then Make Plain Text, before saving, pick UTF-8 if it asks about encoding, and check in Finder's Get Info that the name ends in .srt rather than .srt.txt or .rtf.
• A nearly full startup disk. Long renders are written to the browser's private storage on the startup disk, so a MacBook short on space can stop a long or 4K render. The summary estimates the size of the finished file before you begin.
• Sleep. Closing the lid or letting the Mac sleep can interrupt a render, and closing the tab cancels it. Plug in and keep the Mac awake for anything long.
• A file that won't open at all. Professional camera formats such as ProRes usually aren't decodable in a browser. Convert to H.264 MP4 first.
• Shortcuts. Every Ctrl shortcut in the editor uses Cmd on a Mac: Cmd+Z to undo, Cmd+Shift+Z to redo. Delete removes the selected line.

Once the MP4 is in Downloads

Because the subtitles are part of the picture, they travel with the file: into Photos, through Messages and AirDrop to an iPhone, onto a projector at a meeting. Export SRT too if the video is going to YouTube or Vimeo, where a separate caption track can be switched on and off. For a subtitle file without any video, the AI subtitle generator is the shorter route, and for a plain transcript of a recording there is transcribing audio on a Mac. Colleagues on a PC can follow the Windows version of this guide.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser