Your computer can already caption anything it plays. Here's how to switch it on, what it does well, and where it runs out.
People ask assistants some version of this question every day: "How do I get captions on my laptop for a call that doesn't have them?" The good news is that you probably don't need to install anything to start. Apple and Microsoft both ship a free Live Captions feature that turns whatever your computer plays into on-screen text. Built-in live captions are the right first step for everyday listening. They're the wrong tool when the call is in another language or the words really matter. Here's how to turn them on, and how to tell which situation you're in.
Click the Apple menu, then System Settings, then Accessibility in the sidebar.
Choose Live Captions under Hearing and turn it on. A floating caption window appears and starts captioning audio your Mac plays, from any app.
Click the microphone button in the caption window to also caption what's said in the room, for example during an in-person conversation.
Back in Accessibility settings you can change the font, size, and colors so the captions stay readable over a video call.
Live Captions on the Mac run on the device and are available on recent macOS versions on supported Macs, in a limited set of languages. Apple's list of supported hardware and languages changes with each release, so check Apple's current support page if the option doesn't appear.
Press Windows + Ctrl + L. The first time, Windows asks you to agree to on-device processing and download the speech files for your language.
Open Settings → Accessibility → Captions and turn on Live captions. You can also find it in the Quick Settings accessibility panel.
Captions can dock to the top or bottom of the screen or float in a window. Docked mode keeps them from covering a meeting's shared screen.
In the Live captions settings gear, turn on Include microphone audio if you want your own side, or a person in the room, captioned too.
For a deaf or hard-of-hearing person catching a YouTube video, or anyone following a podcast on a noisy train, they're often all you need. If you're not sure how any of this works under the hood, our explainer on how real-time speech recognition works covers it without the jargon.
None of these are flaws, exactly. The built-in features are designed for general accessibility. Professional multilingual work is a different job, and the tools for it are built differently.
Unicaption reads the same system or microphone audio as the built-in captions do, so it works beside any call or video. It adds what multilingual and professional work needs.
For phone calls specifically, see how to caption phone calls in real time. For meetings, see live translated captions in Zoom, Teams, and Meet.
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Watching a video or podcast in your own language | Built-in Live Captions |
| A casual call in your own language | Built-in Live Captions |
| A call or meeting in a language you don't speak well | Unicaption, with side-by-side translation |
| Interpreting, medical, legal, or client calls | Unicaption, with your custom dictionary |
| A call that switches between two languages | Unicaption, with automatic language detection |
On a Mac, open System Settings, choose Accessibility, then Live Captions, and turn it on. A caption window appears and captions any audio the Mac plays. Click its microphone button to caption in-person speech too. Support depends on your Mac and macOS version and covers a limited set of languages; check Apple's support page if the option is missing.
Press Windows + Ctrl + L to open Live captions on Windows 11. You can also turn them on in Settings → Accessibility → Captions. The first time, Windows downloads the speech files for your language. Live captions caption any audio your PC plays, and can include your microphone if you enable it in the captions settings.
Built-in captions focus on captioning in a limited set of languages. Some newer Windows PCs can translate captions into a few target languages. For calls in any of 60+ languages with the original and translation side by side, Unicaption works beside any call platform by reading your system audio, with 30 free minutes every week.
Built-in live captions use a general vocabulary and can't be taught custom words, so names, drug names, and legal terms often come out wrong. Tools with a custom dictionary fix this. Unicaption lets you add names and terminology before a call and includes built-in medical, legal, and government terms.
30 free minutes every week. Works beside any app. Nothing stored.
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