Subtitles · Live captions for Zoom
Subtitles captions the audio your Mac is playing, so a Zoom call is just one more thing making sound. Nothing joins the meeting, nothing is uploaded, and the overlay stays on top while you work in front of it.
Launch week: $5 instead of $9 until 22 August · 14-day refund
Switch to your notes and the call carries on above them. Nothing joined the meeting, and the host changed nothing.
It taps what your Mac plays, so you read everyone else on the call. A client call, a job interview, a webinar you are sitting in on: whoever is speaking on the other end is what you read. Your own microphone is never touched, which is also why nothing you say in the room around you is ever transcribed.
It captions whatever your Mac is playing, so a Zoom call needs nothing switched on first. Narrow it to Zoom, or to the browser running the web client, when something else is making noise. Either way it captures the helper processes an app spawns, which is where browser and Electron audio actually comes from.
A laptop microphone in a hard room, someone dialling in from a car, two people talking over each other on the one decision you have to act on. Reading a word you only half-heard is faster than asking for it again, and it does not interrupt anybody.
Zoom has automated captions, they reach every plan including the free one, and when they are on they are decent. When they are not on, or not working, this guide says which of the two it is. Four things get in the way, and all four are the same thing underneath: they are Zoom's captions, not yours.
The usual way to get text out of a meeting is a notetaker bot: it dials in, appears in the participant list, and everyone sees that the call is being captured. Plenty of workplaces ban them outright, and plenty of conversations change the moment one shows up.
Subtitles is not in the meeting. It never authenticates to Zoom, never asks for calendar access and never appears anywhere on anyone's screen but yours. From the call's point of view you are simply a person listening.
14-day refund, no questions asked.
Subtitles over a film, a stream or a tab that never had a track.
Subtitles in the language being spoken, and translation when you want it.
Captions on every app, without asking anyone to switch them on.
Captions that do not depend on what your tenant's admin allows.
On-device captions, and no Workspace tier to be on.
macOS has this built in and free. Where it stops being enough.
Captions with no workspace app to get approved.
Captions for the shows that never had a transcript.
Captions live, rather than once the recording is processed.
Complementary, not alternatives. Notes after, captions during.
Launch week: $5 instead of $9 until 22 August · 14-day refund
14-day refund, no questions asked
Free for 7 days, then $9 once, every future update included ·
macOS 14.2 or later · Apple silicon
Unlimited live captions, for as long as you own the Mac. No minutes to
buy, no account, no subscription.
