Being able to display real-time captions on your Mac’s screen when audio is playing is super useful. While this Live Captions feature is beneficial for anyone with a hearing impairment, it also helps everyone by making words less likely to be misunderstood. This is particularly helpful during calls, FaceTime conversations, or even in-person discussions. It also lets you watch videos or listen to audio with the volume turned down.
The transcriptions appear in a movable window that you can position anywhere on screen. You can scroll up to view previous content, and Live Captions will underline any words or phrases it's uncertain about. The feature can be turned on or off as needed, and I'll show you several ways to do this.
Before we start, note that Live Captions only works on Macs with Apple silicon processors and requires your system language to be set to either English (US) or English (Canada). To check or change this, go to Apple, System Settings, General, Language & Region.
1. Go to the System Settings
To activate real-time captions on macOS, select the Apple menu (which looks like an apple) in the top-left corner of the screen and choose System Settings.
2. Select Accessibility
Next, choose Accessibility in the sidebar and select Live Captions in the main part of the window.
3. Turn on Live Captions
Simply use the toggle button to activate Live Captions (it will turn blue). You can alter the font family, size and color and you can change the background color of the live captions.
You can then use a toggle button to activate Live Captions in FaceTime.
4. Play some audio
When you play audio on your Mac, a Live Captions window will appear, transcribing spoken words in real-time.
Use the pause button in the window to temporarily halt real-time captioning.
5. Control real-time captions
A Live Captions icon will appear in the toolbar at the top of your Mac’s screen. Click the Live Captions icon and you can select Stop Live Captions, or choose Start Live Captions depending on the current state.
You can also choose to keep the Live Captions window on-screen at all times and switch between transcribing audio from your computer’s speaker or the microphone.
And there you go. You now know how to turn on macOS live captions. Other operating systems also offer a similar feature. You can learn how to use Live Transcribe on Android, or discover how to set up and use Live Captions on your Copilot+ PC. And for iOS users, check out how to get live captions on audio and video.
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