SUBTITLES, PRESS KIT
https://subtitles-live.com/press/

Everything here can be used without asking: crop it, caption it, quote it.
The page above stays current; this file is a copy of it.

IN A SENTENCE

Subtitles is a Mac app that captions whatever the Mac is playing, live, in an overlay that stays on top while you switch apps, with nothing leaving the machine.

IN A PARAGRAPH

Subtitles puts real-time captions for anything a Mac plays in a small overlay that stays above every window. Meetings, podcasts, videos, lectures: if it makes a sound, it captions, in sixteen languages, with live translation between any two of them. Transcription runs on the Neural Engine and translation through Apple's own framework, so no audio and no text leaves the Mac. Hold ⌥ to rewind through what was just said, ⌥F to search it. $9 once, no subscription, seven-day trial.

IN THREE

Subtitles is a live captions app for the Mac. It captions whatever the Mac is playing, a call, a podcast, a video, a lecture, in an overlay that stays above every other window, so the words stay readable while you work in something else. It takes no clicks, dissolves under the pointer so it never hides what is beneath, and holding ⌥ brings back the captions that already closed, which ⌥F can search. Sixteen languages, detected automatically or pinned from the menu bar, and live translation between any two of them.

It works the way it does because of one API: Core Audio process taps, which arrived in macOS 14.2 and let an app hear what another app is playing without a virtual audio device or a loopback driver. The microphone is never opened. Speech recognition is Parakeet, a streaming model, running on the Apple Neural Engine through FluidAudio; translation is Apple's Translation framework. There is no account, no telemetry and nothing written to disk; after the model downloads on first run, the app makes no network calls of its own.

It is made by Mathieu Jouhet, a design engineer in Paris, through his one-person company, CSS LABS, and it is his first Mac app. It costs $9 once, with every future update included, after a seven-day trial with every feature enabled. The source is published under FSL-1.1-ALv2, which becomes Apache 2.0 two years after each release. First released on 15 August 2026; the changelog carries the current version.

A QUOTE FROM THE DEVELOPER

“I would be halfway through something else when the part that mattered was said, and it would be gone. A word I did not catch, an accent I was not used to, two people talking over each other. So the captions had to stay readable while I was doing something else. That is the whole reason it is an overlay, and the reason it can rewind.”
Mathieu Jouhet, who makes Subtitles

THE FACTS

Name: Subtitles. One word, capital S. The site is subtitles-live.com.
Developer: Mathieu Jouhet, design engineer, Paris. First Mac app.
Company: CSS LABS, a French SARL. Registered office in Paris.
What it is: Live captions for anything a Mac plays, in an always-on-top overlay. Accessibility and productivity.
Price: $9 once. No subscription, no account, every future update included.
Trial: Seven days, every feature enabled, no card. The trial counts from the first caption, not the install.
Refund: 14 days, no questions asked.
Requirements: macOS 14.2 or later, Apple silicon. Live translation needs macOS 15, because Apple's Translation framework arrives there.
Languages: Sixteen: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Chinese. Detected automatically by default; any one can be pinned from the menu bar.
Translation: Live, between any two of the sixteen, on device. Hold ⌃ to see the original while it is being typed.
Rewind and search: Hold ⌥ and every caption that closed stacks back up; ⌥F narrows the stack to the boxes that match. Held in memory until quit, never on disk.
Audio: Core Audio process taps, the macOS 14.2 API. No virtual audio device, nothing rerouted, speakers keep playing. All system audio by default, or one app and its helpers. The microphone is never opened.
Speech model: Parakeet, a streaming model, on the Apple Neural Engine through FluidAudio. Downloaded once on first run, roughly 583 or 633 MB depending on the language pack.
Privacy: No account, no telemetry, nothing written to disk. After the model download, no network calls of its own apart from a version check you can decline and, with a key, a monthly check of it.
Source and licence: Published at github.com/daformat/subtitles under FSL-1.1-ALv2, which becomes Apache 2.0 two years after each release.
Distribution: Direct download, a notarised DMG. Keys are sold through Gumroad. Not on the Mac App Store.
Versions: 1.0 on 15 August 2026. The changelog carries every release since and the current version; it has been most days.

NAMES AND WORDS

- Subtitles is the app, one word with a capital S. It is a generic word on purpose, so "the Subtitles app" or "Subtitles for Mac" is fine where the sentence needs it.
- Captions is what it draws; the site says live captions and real-time subtitles interchangeably, and so can you.
- Rewind is the ⌥ feature: hold ⌥ and the captions that closed stack back up. Search is ⌥F. Neither is a transcript; nothing is saved.
- On device rather than "offline": the Mac can be online, the audio just never leaves it.
- Apple silicon, and macOS 14.2 as the floor. Not "M1 or later", which is true but is not how the site puts it.
- Mathieu Jouhet makes it; CSS LABS sells it. Either is a fair attribution.

FILES

stills/            frames from the demo on the home page, 1920x1080, light and dark
app/               captures of the app on a Mac desktop, light and dark
icon/              the app icon at 1024 and 512, and the mark as SVG

Contact: https://subtitles-live.com/contact/
