How to Auto-Generate Video Subtitles on Mac (Free, No Upload)

TL;DR: On an Apple Silicon Mac, just drag your video into bakecut and click "Create subtitles" to get AI-generated subtitles. Everything runs on your own computer, your video is never uploaded, and the free plan covers up to 120 minutes per month.

Most online subtitle tools require you to upload your video to a server. You wait for the upload, wait for processing, and accept whatever styling you are given. For anyone who makes videos regularly that is slow, and uploading unreleased footage somewhere can simply feel wrong.

Here is how to auto-generate subtitles on your Mac, for free, without your video ever leaving your computer.

What you need

• An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later)
• bakecut: a free subtitle editor that runs Whisper (the speech recognition AI behind many paid tools) directly on your computer

Step 1: Open your video

Install bakecut and drag your video in. Whether it is a landscape video or a vertical one for Shorts, the subtitle size adjusts automatically to fit the frame.

Step 2: AI transcription

Click "Create subtitles," pick the language and model size, and you are done. The default recommendation is the "Small" model: for clean voice recordings it is fast and plenty accurate. For noisy audio or fast talkers, try "Medium."

Since everything runs on your Mac, there is no server queue and your video never leaves the computer.

Step 3: Fix and style

AI transcription is quite accurate, but not perfect. In bakecut, editing the text does not break per-word timing, you can split a clip with a single Enter key, and silent sections can be trimmed in one pass.

Then comes the fun part: you can give every individual word its own color, font, and size. There are effects that highlight words one by one as they are spoken, and an effect that pops an emoji above a key word.

Step 4: Export

Hit export, and the subtitles are burned into the video exactly as they looked in the preview (same fonts, same colors, same animations). Upload the result straight to YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.

What does it cost?

The free plan gives you 120 minutes of AI transcription per month plus every editing feature. Exported videos carry a small watermark, but if you credit bakecut in your video description you can export watermark-free even on the free plan.

FAQ

Is my video really never uploaded?

Correct. Speech recognition, editing, and export all happen on your Mac. The internet is only needed briefly to verify your login when transcription starts, and the video file itself is never sent anywhere.

Does it work on Intel Macs?

It supports Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or later), and a Windows version is also available. Check the download page on the website for details.

Which languages can it recognize?

Korean, English, Japanese, and over 90 other languages supported by Whisper.

Can I also save a subtitle file (SRT)?

Yes. Besides burning subtitles into the video, you can save them as a separate SRT file, which works for YouTube subtitle uploads too.