Lyrics as subtitles and captions on YouTube

Lyrics shown as captions on YouTube make your song readable for people who don't understand the language, who are watching without sound, or who simply want to sing along. They also give YouTube real text to work with. Adding them takes less than an hour per video, and you can improve them later.

Captions, description and lyric video: what's the difference

These three get mixed up, and each does a different job.

• The description is plain text under the video. People can read it and search engines can index it, but it doesn't move with the music.
• Captions (subtitles) are timed text shown on the screen. The viewer can switch them on and off, and you can offer several languages for one video.
• A lyric video has the words drawn into the picture. That text is part of the video: it can't be switched off, can't be translated and can't be corrected without uploading a new file.

Captions are the flexible option. They live in a separate file, so you can fix a typo or add a language a year from now without touching the video.

How to add lyrics as captions in YouTube Studio

1. Open YouTube Studio and choose Subtitles in the left menu, then pick the video.
2. Click to add a language and choose the language the lyrics are written in.
3. Add the text. YouTube offers a few routes: upload a timed file such as .srt, type or paste the lyrics and set the timing yourself, or paste the text and let YouTube sync it to the audio automatically.
4. Check the timing on the preview, then publish.

The wording of these menus changes from time to time, so look at the current options in your Studio. The automatic sync is the quickest route for a finished song, but always watch the whole thing afterwards.

Don't rely on automatic captions for music. They are made for speech, and they often fail on sung vocals, loud instruments and less common languages. A wrong line on screen is worse than no line.

Translations: the same song for more listeners

Once the original-language captions exist, you can add other languages on the same screen. An Azerbaijani song with Turkish, English and Russian captions opens the video to people who like the melody but can't follow the words.

• Translate meaning, not word by word. Poetry, idioms and slang rarely survive literal translation.
• Ask a native speaker to read it. Machine translation is a fine first draft and a poor final version.
• Translate the title and description too. YouTube Studio lets you add those for other languages as well.

Be careful with rights. Lyrics that you wrote are yours to caption and translate. If the song is a cover or uses another writer's words, get permission from the songwriter or their publisher first, because a translation of someone else's lyrics is still based on their work.

Why captions help

• Accessibility. Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers can follow the song.
• Muted viewing. Many people watch on a phone in a public place with the sound off.
• Non-native listeners. People learning your language, or hearing it for the first time, can follow along.
• Search. Captions give YouTube text that matches what the video contains, which can help it understand and surface the video. It's a support for a good video, not a shortcut to views.

Accuracy and timing tips

• Work from your final lyrics file, not from what you hear. Check the spelling of names and dialect words, and keep it consistent with the description.
• Keep each caption to one or two short lines, and break at the natural end of a phrase, never in the middle of a word.
• Let each line appear just before it is sung and stay long enough to read at an easy pace.
• Write repeated choruses out in full. Mark long instrumental parts briefly, for example [instrumental].
• If the song mixes languages, pick the main language for the track and write the rest as it is sung.
• Save timed files in UTF-8, so special letters such as ə, ğ or ç don't turn into question marks.
• Watch the result on a phone with the sound off. If you can follow the song, so can your audience.

A short checklist

1. Do I own the lyrics or have permission to publish them?
2. Is the text final, with names spelled correctly?
3. Is the language set to the language actually sung?
4. Are the lines short and timed to the music?
5. Have I added at least one translation for the listeners I expect most?

Captions are quiet work, and viewers rarely notice them when they're right. When they are wrong, everyone notices, so spend the extra ten minutes checking them.