Learn to Add Free Closed Captions to YouTube Videos with Andrew Kan (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello everyone. I'm Andrew Kan, and if I Kan, you Kan too. I'll teach you how to add closed captions to YouTube videos for free. Closed captions are not only a great way for your video to be more inclusive, but gives YouTube more metadata to help rank your video with. I'll show you how to add closed captions to YouTube videos with and without a script. But let's start without a script. First, head to the My Videos page. Select the video you want to add the closed captions to, and click the Edit button. This will take you to the Subtitles slash Closed Captions page. You should see an Automatic Caption option in your native language, and Automatic in parentheses. Click on this, and this will let you see the YouTube automatically generated subtitles slash closed caption source. This is great if you want to add captions, but don't have the script or funds to add them in other ways. To actually edit these captions, we're going to select Edit. This will refresh the page, and will let you start to edit the video's closed captions. Sometimes the automatic captions are 100% fine, but other times they can be slightly off. You can make edits as needed. Then, once it's done, you'll select Publish Edits. They might show up in Pending Publish if the video is longer, but once done, you'll see under the Automatic option your new closed captions slash subtitles, and like before, you can edit them by selecting the new closed captions. While closed captions and subtitles are very similar, they are not the same thing. Closed captions are a transcription of dialogue, subtitles are a translation. Continuing on, I'll show you how to add closed captions with a script. Head to the My Videos page once again, and select Edit and Closed Captions on the video of your choice, and then select Add New Subtitles or CC. You can select your native language, which for me is English, or search one of the 189 plus other languages that YouTube supports. I'll select English. You'll be given three options. Upload a file, which if you've paid a site like Rev.com or 3media to do captions, you can add them here. I've had to purchase professional captions for some film festivals, so you can just upload them here. Transcribe and Autosync, which lets you type or paste in a full transcript of the video, and the subtitle timings will be set automatically. Create New Subtitles or CC lets you create captions by typing what is being said along with the video. We'll be selecting Transcribe and Autosync. This will allow us to copy and paste in our script. I'm using the same script from earlier in the video, and we'll be pasting that in now. Once you've pasted the video, select Set Timings. It might take a bit for the timings to be set, but once they are, you'll be able to see your captions by refreshing. Then, select the new captions, and you can watch and edit them for timing. This looks great for me, so I'll go ahead and select Publish. Transcribe and Autosync also works on film scripts, too. Take a look at this example. Well, at least one of us gets to eat. Just as before, copy and paste the script into Transcribe and Autosync, and watch as the rest falls into place. That's going to be it for this video. Are you adding closed captions to your video? Let me know in those comments down below, and if you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to this channel. I go over my film, my travels, and my expertise, and remember, if I can, you can too.