Consuming media in a noisy environment, watching a video without headphones in a quiet office, or struggling with poor audio mixing in a podcast can make understanding spoken dialogue difficult. To improve accessibility, Microsoft introduced a powerful, system-wide feature in Windows 11 called Live Captions.
Unlike YouTube’s closed captions, which only work within a specific video player, Windows 11 Live Captions process all audio output on your computer. Whether you are watching a local video file, participating in a Zoom call, or listening to a web-based podcast, Live Captions will automatically generate text on your screen in real-time.
How to Enable Live Captions
Live Captions must be turned on manually before they start working.
- Click the Start button (Windows icon) and open the Settings app.
- On the left-hand sidebar, select Accessibility.
- Under the “Hearing” section, click Captions.
- Toggle the switch for Live captions to the On position.
The Quick Shortcut: Once you know where the feature is, you don’t need to navigate through the Settings app every time. You can instantly toggle Live Captions on or off by pressing Windows Key + Ctrl + L.
The Initial Setup Download
The first time you turn on Live Captions, a banner will appear at the top of your screen asking for permission to download the necessary language files. Because Windows 11 processes the audio locally on your machine (ensuring privacy and offline capability), it needs to download a small speech recognition package. Click Download and wait a few moments.
How to Use and Customise the Captions
Once enabled, a dark floating bar will appear on your screen. Any spoken audio playing from your computer will be transcribed into text within this bar almost instantly.
You can customise how this bar looks and behaves to better suit your workflow.
Changing the Position
By default, the captions bar floats at the top of the screen. If this blocks your browser tabs or application menus, you can move it.
- Click the Settings gear icon located in the top-right corner of the Live Captions bar.
- Hover over Position.
- Choose Top (docks it above all windows), Bottom (docks it below all windows), or Floating on screen (allows you to drag it anywhere you want, like a traditional window).
Including Microphone Audio
By default, Live Captions only transcribes the audio your computer is outputting (e.g., the other people on a Teams call). If you want it to also transcribe your own voice (useful for recording a meeting or checking your own clarity), you can enable microphone access.
- Click the Settings gear icon in the Live Captions bar.
- Hover over Preferences.
- Check the box for Include microphone audio.
Filtering Profanity
If you are using Live Captions in an educational or professional setting, you might want to enable the profanity filter. This replaces explicit words with asterisks.
- Click the Settings gear icon in the Live Captions bar.
- Hover over Preferences.
- Check the box for Filter profanity.
Changing the Text Style
If the default white text on a black background is difficult to read, you can change the font colour, size, and background opacity.
- Open the Windows 11 Settings app.
- Navigate to Accessibility > Captions.
- Under the “Caption style” section, click the dropdown menu. You can choose presets like White on black or Small caps.
- To create a custom look, click the Edit button. Here you can individually adjust the text colour, font family, text size, and the opacity of the background box.
Windows 11 Live Captions is a transformative accessibility tool that operates entirely on-device, providing accurate, real-time subtitles for literally any application running on your PC.