Chrome Live Captioning

This article describes how to turn on and use Chrome browser's built-in live captioning. You can use this live captioning with any media that plays in the Chrome browser.

You need to turn on Chrome's live captioning feature before you can use it. First, click on the "Customize and control Google Chrome" menu at the far right of Chrome's toolbar. It looks like a vertical row of three dots -- also called the "kebab" menu.

detail of Chrome's kebab menu

Click on "Settings."

Detail of chrome's dropdown menu with an arrow pointing to the "settings" link

On the settings menu, look for "Accessibility"

Closeup of the settings page showing the Accessibility link with an arrow pointing to it.

"Live Caption" can be toggled on and off on this page. Make sure you turn it on by clicking the slider button.

The accessibility page with an arrow pointing to the live caption switcher turned on.

When caption-able media is on one of your browser tabs - such as a Youtube video or a web meeting - a media control icon will appear on your browser toolbar, allowing you to turn captions on and off for this content. Click on this icon to open a small control window with a toggle on-and-off slider.

Screenshot of a youtube video playing in the browser, and the caption controller appearing in the upper right of the page.

Live captions will generally appear below the media in a gray box, but you can move this display around by clicking and dragging it.

Zoomed-in detail of the same youtube video showing the captions playing at the bottom of the window.

If you switch to another tab while the media or meeting is playing, your live captions will continue to display at the bottom of your screen until you stop the media or close the captions.