Live Caption is one of the best accessibility features on the Chromebook, and I use it regularly whenever YouTube’s closed captioning goes crazy with its voice recognition. Also, the live subtitles feature is useful when you’re too lazy to put on your headphones and don’t want to disturb others. It’s accurate, fast, translates speech to text in real time, and works even when you’re offline. If that sounds useful and you want to enable Live Caption on your Chromebook, follow our quick guide below. We’ve also mentioned some fixes in case the feature stops working on your Chromebook. With that said, let’s go ahead and learn how to turn on live captions on your Chromebook.
Enable Live Captions on your Chromebook (2022)
In this article, we explain a simple way to enable Live Caption on Chromebooks. In case Live Caption is not working on your Chrome OS device, you can also find the solution here. So, without further ado, let’s dive in:
Turn on live captions on your Chromebook
Currently, Live Caption on Chromebook only supports the English language. From English (US) to English (UK) to English (India), all English language variants from different regions are supported. Google says live subtitles for French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish are coming to Chromebooks soon.
In addition to that, Google says that audio and subtitles are processed locally on the Chromebook, so the data never leaves the device. From a privacy perspective, this is a good strategy. Now that all of that has been said, let’s move on to the steps.
1. First, open the Quick Settings panel in the lower right corner. Then click on the gear icon to open settings.
2. On the Settings page, click “Advanced” on the left sidebar to expand the menu, and then open the “Accessibility“.
3. Here, click on “Manage accessibility features” in the right pane.
4. Now, scroll down and move to the “Audio and Subtitles” section. Here, click on “Subtitles“.
5. Finally, enable the “Live Caption” option. on your Chromebook. After that, Google will start downloading some speech recognition files from its server so that it can offer live subtitles even when your device is offline.
6. Now, go ahead and play any media in Chrome. A live subtitle popup will appear below and start generating subtitles in real time. Please note that the Live Caption feature only works in chrome browser on Chromebooks. If you play a media file from your local storage, it won’t work.
7. I also tried Live Caption on not connected, and it worked well. You need to play the media file through the Chrome browser and the live subtitles will appear. To play any media file through Chrome, simply drag and drop the video into the Chrome browser.
8. If you want customize subtitle size, font, color, and background coloropacity, etc., you can do this from the Settings app on your Chromebook.
Live Caption not working on your Chromebook? fix it here
1. If Live Caption isn’t working on your Chromebook or you don’t see the option in Settings, don’t worry. Just open the chrome://flags page in the Chrome browser. Here, search for “live subtitles.” You can read all about Chrome flags and view some of the best useful Chrome flags through the attached links.
2. You can also directly open the below the address in Chrome, and it will take you to the “Live Caption” banner.
chrome://flags/#enable-accessibility-live-caption
3. Now, enable the Live Caption flag in the dropdown menu and restart your chromebook. From now on, Live Caption should work fine on your Chromebook.
4. Finally, I suggest you switch to English language. if you want to enjoy Live Caption on your Chromebook if you haven’t already. You can change the language from Settings -> Advanced -> Languages and input -> Languages -> Change (next to device language).
Chrome OS Live Captions: Frequently Asked Questions
What languages does Live Caption support on Chromebooks?
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Currently, only English languages from different regions are supported on Chromebooks. Google says Live Caption in French, German, Italian, etc. is coming soon.
How to enable Live Caption in Chrome?
just tomorrow chrome://flags/#enable-accessibility-live-caption in the chrome browser and enable the flag. This will activate the Live Caption feature in Chrome. You can go further than Settings -> Advanced -> Accessibility -> Subtitles to set live captions.
Does Live Caption work offline on Chromebooks?
Yes, live captions work offline on Chromebooks and the data never leaves your device. All data processing is done locally.
How to customize Live Caption on Chromebooks?
Open Settings and go to Advanced -> Accessibility -> Manage accessibility features -> Subtitles. Here, under “Subtitle Preferences”, you can choose the subtitle size, font, background color, etc.
Generate accurate, real-time captions on Chromebooks
This is how you get the live caption feature on Chromebooks. I find the feature very useful, especially when you’re listening to a speech with a different accent than your own. It can accurately transcribe speech and it works even offline. Anyway, that’s just us. If you want to enable Live Caption in Windows 11, we have a useful guide for that too. And to find more Chromebook tips and tricks, follow our linked article. Finally, if you have any questions, please let us know in the comments section below.