How to enable automatic subtitles on YouTube live streams

YouTube now allows you to add automatic subtitles to your live streams. Here's how to enable the feature.

All YouTube users can now enable automatic subtitles on their live streams. This feature was previously only available for YouTube channels with up to 1000 subscribers, but now anyone can use it.

If you're planning a YouTube live stream and want viewers to be able to read what you say in real time, you can now turn on automatic subtitles. This will allow many viewers to follow better and increase your audience engagement.

Subtitles on YouTube make your content more accessible to viewers. In this article, we will give you the roundup of automatic subtitles live streaming on YouTube and show you how to enable them.

What are automatic captions for YouTube live streams

When you create a video, you can manually subtitle it so that your viewers can follow it. YouTube encourages this as it's a great way to engage viewers, especially the deaf.

The automatic captioning feature on YouTube automatically generates captions for long-form videos and short films, and as recently announced by YouTube, it is now also available for live streams. Using speech recognition technology, YouTube's machine learning algorithm can automatically create captions for your live videos.

However, due to the limitations of machine learning, misspelled pronunciations, dialects, accents, overlapping speech, and background noises, caption errors are commonplace. And the biggest flaw with automatic captions for YouTube live streams is that it's only available in English.

Automatic subtitles must be enabled for each new live stream and the subtitles will not remain on the video once the live stream is finished. The new automatic subtitles will be generated on demand and may differ from the subtitles displayed during the live stream.

Requirements to enable automatic subtitles on YouTube live streams

To use the automatic captioning feature on your YouTube live streams, you must meet the following requirements:

• First, you will need to verify your YouTube account to be able to live stream. This is different from getting a YouTube verification badge and only takes a few minutes to complete.
• You should be free of any restrictions on live streaming for the past 90 days.
• Your account must be activated for live streaming. This is only necessary if you have never live streamed before and YouTube will do this automatically when you try to stream live for the first time. You will only have to wait 24 hours.
• Your channel content must be in English.
• Your live stream must be set to “normal latency”, which is a delay of 15-60 seconds.
• The video must have good sound quality and not have overlaid speech, in order for YouTube to recognize the speech.

How to enable automatic subtitles for live streams on YouTube

Here's how to enable automatic subtitles for live streams on YouTube.

• Go to your desktop, log into your account if you haven't already, and click the icon + ( Crea ) in the upper right corner.
• Select Go live.
• Select Stream from the menu on the left.
• In the card STREAM SETTINGS , locate the section Additional settings . Scroll down and turn on the switch Subtitles.
• When asked where the subtitles originate, choose Automatic subtitles.
• Please select a language.

Your next live stream will now have automatic subtitles.

If automatic subtitles aren't broadcasting your content properly, you can turn them off to avoid confusing viewers. Just go back to Stream > STREAM SETTINGS > Additional settings > Subtitles and turn it off.