Is someone in a YouTube video difficult to understand, or would you rather play the video without the sound? Then turn on the subtitles.Types of subtitles
YouTube has two types of captions: the captions created automatically by YouTube and the captions manually entered by the owner of the channel the video is on. This means that the quality differs per video. Subtitles with the name ‘Dutch (automatically generated)’ were added by YouTube itself. These have not been checked for errors. YouTube shows what he thinks he hears. These can be very wrong words. The name of subtitles created by the channel owner varies by video. These subtitles have been checked for inaccuracies.
Turn on YouTube subtitles in the browser
Are you playing a YouTube video on the computer? Turn on the subtitles as follows:
- surf to youtube.com.
- Click on the video you want to play.
- Click on the subtitle button
at the bottom of. Don’t see the button? First move the mouse pointer over the video so that the playback bar appears. The button is there at the bottom right. There will be a red line under the button when the subtitles are on. - Click the button again to turn them off again.
Turn on subtitles in the YouTube app
If you are watching a video in the YouTube app on a tablet or smartphone, turn on the subtitles like this:
- Tap the three dots at the top right (if you don’t see the dots, tap the video first).
- Tap on Subtitles.
- Tap the desired subtitle.
- When the subtitles are on, the ‘CC’ icon will turn white
. Tap to turn the subtitles off again.
Turn on subtitles in Chrome (Android device)
If you are watching a video in the Chrome browser on the mobile device, turn on the subtitles like this:
- Open Chrome
- surf to youtube.com.
- Tap a video.
- Optionally tap Skip ad.
- Tap the gear
top right (if you don’t see the gear, tap the video first). - Under ‘Subtitles’, tap the down arrow.
- Tap the desired subtitle.
- Tap on OK to go back to the video.
Repeat the above steps if necessary to hide the subtitles. The steps are based on a Samsung device with Android 11.
Turn on Subtitles in Safari (iPad/iPhone)
If you are playing a YouTube video in the browser of an iPad or iPhone, do the following:
- Open Safari and go to youtube.com.
- Tap a video.
- Optionally tap Skip ad.
- Tap the Settings icon
top right (if you don’t see this, tap the video first). - Tap the arrow under ‘Subtitles’.
- Select the subtitle.
- Tap on OK.
- Repeat the above steps if necessary and choose ‘Off’ for subtitles to hide the subtitles.