How to add subtitles to YouTube Shorts: SRT or burned in
Two kinds of subtitles for a Short: a caption file viewers can switch on, and captions burned into the picture. How to make each and when to use which.
Two kinds of subtitles for a Short: a caption file viewers can switch on, and captions burned into the picture. How to make each and when to use which.
There are two different things people mean by subtitles on a Short, and they are made in different ways:
Many creators use both: burned-in captions for the viewer, a caption file for accessibility and translation.
YouTube may also make automatic captions for a Short on its own. They are often good enough; an uploaded file is how you make them exactly right.
Burned-in captions are made in a video editor before upload. In CapCut, Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve you can import the same SRT from the subtitle generator as a captions track, then style it: a bold font, a large size, a dark outline, placed in the middle of the frame so the interface at the bottom of the screen does not cover it.
What works on a phone:
Play the Short with the captions on before you publish. Three things go wrong most often:
Shorts made in the YouTube automation studio and the faceless reels generator come with captions already burned in: the narration in large lines, and a hook kept at the top. There is nothing to add in an editor, but the caption file still helps viewers who need it; transcribe the downloaded MP4 on the subtitle generator to get one.
Subtitling someone else's Short and reposting it is reposting. To read what another creator said, paste the link on the YouTube Shorts transcript page instead; the text is for notes and quoting with credit.