Burn Subtitles into Video
Hardcode an SRT or VTT file into an MP4, with a preview of every caption on your own frames.
- Free
- No sign-up
- No watermark
- Runs in your browser
Loading the tool.
Burned-in or separate subtitles?
There are two ways to give a video captions. Burning them in paints the words into the picture, so they become pixels like everything else in the frame. A separate SRT or VTT file travels next to the video, and the player draws the text on top while it plays. Neither is right everywhere: it depends on where the video is going and who will watch it.
| Question | Burned-in (this tool) | Separate file (SRT / VTT) |
|---|---|---|
| Can viewers turn them off? | No, they are part of the picture | Yes, with the player's captions button |
| Do they show on every app and player? | Yes, anywhere the video itself plays | Only where the player loads the file |
| Can you fix a typo later? | Only by exporting the video again | Yes: edit the text and upload the file again |
| Does the platform need to support caption files? | No, there is no file to support | Yes, or the captions never appear |
| Can the words be searched as text? | No: they are pixels in the frame | Yes, where the platform reads the caption file |
| Can one video carry several languages? | No, one language per exported video | Yes, one file per language |
| Is the video re-encoded? | Yes, every frame is redrawn | No, the video is left as it is |
Doing both is common: the burned-in version for people who watch without sound, and the same SRT uploaded next to it wherever the platform accepts one, so the words stay searchable. This tool produces only the video, so keep your subtitle file.
How it works
Add the video, then the subtitles. Drop your video into the box. Once it has been read, add the matching .srt or .vtt file, or paste its text if you only have it in an editor or an email.
Check captions on real frames. The preview puts each caption on a frame from your video, using the same drawing code that renders the file. Step through the captions with the arrows or the list, and change style, position and text size until every line reads well.
Burn and download the MP4. Press Burn subtitles. Every frame is decoded, the caption showing at that moment is painted on, and the frame is encoded again as H.264 while the sound is carried over. Download the MP4 when the bar reaches the end.
What you get
- Long lines wrapped for you
- Captions are wrapped to fit within 86% of the frame width and kept to three lines. A caption that still does not fit is drawn a little smaller; if it must be cut, the tool names it before you burn, so no words vanish without warning.
- Sized to the frame, not to a guess
- Text size is a share of the video's short side: the default 5.5% means 59 px on a 1080 × 1920 phone video and 40 px on a 1280 × 720 one. The same setting looks the same on vertical and horizontal footage.
- Clear of the app buttons
- On vertical video the captions are placed in the middle of the frame by default, above the description and buttons that TikTok, Reels and Shorts draw over the bottom. Bottom and Top are one click away, and the safe-zone checker shows what each app covers.
- Warned before it goes wrong
- Captions timed past the end of the video are flagged before you burn, and when you have no file you can paste the subtitle text from an editor or an email. Styling tags such as <i> are removed, so every line takes the style you pick.
Questions people ask
How do I burn subtitles into a video on my phone?
Open this page in a mobile browser that supports WebCodecs, such as current Chrome on Android, and use it as on a computer: pick the video from your gallery, then the SRT from your files. Keep the screen on and the tab in front while it renders; if your browser lacks WebCodecs, the tool says so instead of starting.
Will burning subtitles lower the video quality?
Slightly, because the whole video has to be encoded again: the captions become part of every frame, so no frame can be copied untouched. The resolution and frame timing stay those of the original, and the sound is kept. The one exception is a video with an odd width or height, which loses a single row or column of pixels, because H.264 needs even sides.
Should I use an SRT or a VTT file?
Either one gives the same video here. SRT is the simpler and more widely accepted file; VTT is the web's format and can carry positions and styling, which this tool ignores because it places and styles the text itself. If an upload form wants the other format, the subtitle converter turns one into the other.
How long does it take to burn subtitles into a video?
It depends on the video's length and resolution and on your device, because every frame is decoded, drawn on and encoded again. Our 10-second 1080 × 1920 test clip took between 3 and 6 seconds per run in Chrome on our test computer; a phone, a longer video or a higher resolution takes longer.
Why is the new file a different size from the original?
Because the picture is encoded again at the encoder's own quality setting rather than copied, so the size follows the new encode, not the old one. Our 10-second 1080 × 1920 test clip went from 5.0 MB to 4.1 MB with four captions burned in.
Can I change the font or the colors?
You choose between three looks: Clean (white with a black outline), Boxed (white on a translucent dark box) and Yellow (bold yellow with a black outline), plus position and text size. The typeface is Inter, the one this site uses; characters it lacks fall back to your system's font.
What if my subtitles are out of sync with the video?
Fix the timing first, because this tool burns each caption at the exact times written in the file. The subtitle converter can shift every cue earlier or later, and this page warns you when captions run past the end of the video.
No SRT file yet?
GPT-Video writes the captions from your video's audio, times every word and animates them word by word, then cuts the long video into vertical clips. This free tool only burns in a subtitle file you already have.
Related
Your file is processed on your device and never uploaded.