Get live captions for calls, videos and speech on your Mac

Why it happens

Live Captions listens to the sound coming out of your Mac and turns speech into text as it happens. It's off until you switch it on. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon and isn't offered in every language or region. Your Mac makes the captions itself, on the device.

How to fix it

1. Open the Apple menu, choose System Settings, and click Accessibility in the sidebar.

2. Click Live Captions and turn on the Live Captions switch.

   Accessibility›Live Captions›Live Captions

3. The first time, your Mac may need to download the language. Wait for that to finish.

4. Play a video or join a call. The captions window shows the words as people speak. To caption people talking in the room, click the microphone button in that window.

5. For FaceTime calls, also turn on Live Captions in FaceTime on the same page to see captions inside the call.

   Accessibility›Live Captions

Still not fixed?

1. Don't see Live Captions? Choose Apple menu > About This Mac and look at Chip. It needs Apple silicon, such as M1 or later. Intel Macs don't have it.

   Apple menu›About This Mac

2. Captions missing or in the wrong language? Live Captions only works in the languages Apple supports, so speech in other languages may not be captioned.

3. Text too small to read? Make it bigger with Font size on the same page.

   Accessibility›Live Captions›Font size

4. If no words appear, check the captions window isn't paused, and that the video or call is actually playing sound.

5. Captions aren't perfect, so don't rely on them in an emergency. If Live Captions won't turn on, or the window never shows on a Mac with Apple silicon, contact Apple Support.