How to Automatically Add Subtitles to a Video on Mac (Free & Private)

Most online subtitle tools make you upload your video to a server, wait for processing, and accept whatever style they give you. If you make videos regularly, that's slow — and uploading unreleased footage isn't always something you want to do.

Here's how to add subtitles automatically on a Mac, entirely on your own computer, for free.

What you need

• A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer)
• bakecut — a free AI subtitle editor that runs Whisper (the same speech-recognition AI behind many paid tools) locally on your machine

Step 1 — Open your video

Install bakecut, open it, and drag your video in. Horizontal and vertical videos are both handled automatically — the subtitle size adapts to the frame.

Step 2 — Let the AI transcribe

Click "Create subtitles", pick a language and a model size, and wait. The "Small" model is a good default: fast and accurate enough for clean voice recordings. If your audio is noisy or fast-paced, try "Medium".

Because everything runs on your Mac, transcription speed depends on your machine, not on a server queue — and your video never leaves your computer.

Step 3 — Fix and style

AI transcription is good, but not perfect. In bakecut you can edit the text without breaking the word timings, split clips with the Enter key, and remove silent gaps in one click.

Then the fun part: every single word can have its own color, font, and size. You can also turn on word-by-word highlighting — each word lights up as it's spoken — and auto-matched emoji that pop above key words.

Step 4 — Export

Click Export. The subtitles are burned into the video exactly as you see them in the preview — same fonts, same colors, same animations. Upload the result straight to YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.

How much does it cost?

The free plan includes 120 minutes of AI transcription per month and every editing feature. Exports carry a small watermark that you can remove just by crediting bakecut in your video description.