How to turn captions on and off in Instagram

Instagram now has auto-generated captions, which means it can automatically transcribe any videos you watch on the app. But before you start seeing captions appear in the app, you’ll probably have to enable the feature first, and the same goes if you want to post videos with captions.

Before we get started, it’s worth noting that auto-generated captions are available in 17 languages at the time of writing: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Vietnamese, Italian, German, Turkish, Russian, Thai, Tagalog, Urdu, Malay, Hindi, Indonesian, and Japanese. Instagram plans on adding support for more languages in the future.

Here’s how to turn captions on and off on Instagram for iPhone and Android, whether you just want to watch videos with captions or you’re looking to post a video with subtitles.

Turn on / off captions for all videos in your feed

Instagram’s auto-generated captions are turned off by default. If you want to turn captions on for every video that appears in your feed, you just need to adjust a single setting. You can repeat these steps to turn captions off.

• Tap your profile in the bottom right corner of the screen.
• Select the hamburger menu in the top right of the screen, and then select Settings.
• Go to Account > Captions, and then toggle the Captions option on. You can toggle the Captions option back again if you wish to turn them off.

Turn on captions for a single video

If you don’t want captions on every video you see, you can opt to turn on captions for just a single video. Here’s how to do this:

• Tap the three dots in the top-right corner of a video.
• If the video supports captions, you’ll see an option that says Manage Captions.
• Toggle on the Captions option.

Posting a video with captions

Instagram’s auto-generated come in handy for creators as well, as this means you’ll no longer have to transcribe your videos and then add caption overlays. Follow these steps to turn captions on or off when creating your post:

• Start by uploading a video from your gallery or shooting one within Instagram.
• When you’re finished applying any edits, select Advanced Settings from the menu that appears before you post your video.
• Under Accessibility, toggle the Show Captions option on or off.

If you forget to turn captions on before you post a video, you can always do so after.

• Tap the three dots that appear in the top-right corner of your video, then tap Edit.
• On Android, select Remove Captions to disable them. On an iPhone, hit Advanced Settings and then toggle the Show captions option on or off.