Subtitles

Subtitles · Live captions for Zoom

Live captions for Zoom,
without asking the host.

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.

14-day refund, no questions asked

Buy for $9 See how it works

One-time $9, every future update included · macOS 14.2 or later · Apple Silicon
Unlimited captions, for as long as you like. No minutes to buy, no account, no subscription.

Why not Zoom's own captions?

Zoom has automated captions, they reach every plan including the free one, and when they are on they are decent. Four things get in the way, and all four are the same thing underneath: they are Zoom's captions, not yours.

  • The host has to switch them on. A participant can request captions from the toolbar; only the host can actually enable auto-transcription. On a call with a client, a recruiter or a lecturer who has never touched the setting, asking is the whole problem.
  • They live inside the Zoom window. Move to your notes, your editor or a browser tab and the captions go behind it along with everything else. This overlay is always on top, and click-through, so it stays put while you work in front of it.
  • They are gone when you look away. Since 18 May 2026 Zoom keeps roughly three minutes of scroll-back and no plan can save or download captions any more. Nothing here is saved either, but nothing here was ever a promise of a record.
  • Zoom processes them. The audio goes to their servers to come back as text. Subtitles never opens a socket: the model runs on the Neural Engine in your Mac, the audio is discarded as fast as it is read, and the call is never recorded, never written to disk and never sent anywhere at all.

Nothing joins your call

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.

Buy for $9

14-day refund, no questions asked.

What it captions on a Zoom call

The other people

It taps what your Mac plays, so you read everyone else on the call. Your own microphone is never touched, which is also why nothing you say in the room around you is ever transcribed.

The desktop app or the tab

Point it at Zoom, or at the browser running the web client. It captures the helper processes an app spawns, which is where browser and Electron audio actually comes from.

Even when you can hear fine

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 questions

Do I need the Zoom host to enable anything?
No. Subtitles captions the audio your Mac is playing, which means it never asks Zoom for anything. Zoom's own automated captions have to be switched on by the host: a participant can request them, but cannot turn them on.
Will anyone in the meeting know I am using it?
No. Nothing joins the call: there is no bot in the participant list, no recording indicator and no notification, because the app never talks to Zoom at all. The overlay exists only on your screen.
Does it work with Zoom in a browser tab?
Yes. It captures the audio of an app and every helper process that app spawns, which is exactly what a browser is, so the Zoom web client captions the same way the desktop app does.
Does it caption what I say?
No. It only ever hears what your Mac plays, never your microphone, so you read the other people on the call and not yourself.
Can I keep a transcript of the call?
No. Nothing is written to disk: captions are on screen and then they are gone. If you need a record afterwards, this is the wrong tool.

The same overlay, elsewhere

Microsoft Teams

Captions that do not depend on what your tenant's admin allows.

Google Meet

On-device captions, and no Workspace tier to be on.

vs Apple Live Captions

macOS has this built in and free. Where it stops being enough.

Slack huddles

Captions with no workspace app to get approved.

Podcasts

Captions for the shows that never had a transcript.

Lectures

Captions live, rather than once the recording is processed.

vs Granola and notes apps

Complementary, not alternatives. Notes after, captions during.

Read the call, without joining anything to it.

14-day refund, no questions asked

Buy for $9

One-time $9, 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.