Enabling automated captions

Zoom has many options for creating virtual closed captioning in your Zoom meetings and webinars that provide subtitles for video conferencing. These options can be enabled and used by participants to easily follow the conversations or to meet accessibility requirements.

In a meeting, the host or another participant assigned by the host can provide manual captioning, an integrated third-party closed captioning service can provide the captioning, or Zoom’s automated captions (also known as live transcription) feature can provide automatic captioning. These same options are available with webinars, although manual captioning can only be provided by the host or a panelist. Any of these captioning options are also viewable in Zoom Rooms.  

This article covers: 

Prerequisites for enabling automated captions

Limitations for automated captions

Supported languages for automated captioning

Supported languages currently include:

How to enable automated captions for meetings and webinars

Account

To enable automated captioning for all users in the account:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an admin with the privilege to edit account settings.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Account Management then Account Settings.
  3. Click the Meeting tab.
  4. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Automated captions toggle to enable or disable it.
  5. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable or Disable to verify the change.
  6. (Optional) If you want to prevent users in the account from changing this setting, click the lock icon unlocked-button.png, and then click Lock to confirm the setting.
  7. (Optional) Click the pencil icon to select which languages you want to be available for captioning. 
  8. (Optional) Click the
  9. Click Save to confirm any changes. 

Group

To enable automated captioning for a group of users:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an admin with the privilege to edit groups.
  2. In the navigation menu, click User Management then Groups.
  3. Click the applicable group name from the list.
  4. Click the Meeting tab.
  5. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Automated captions toggle to enable or disable it.
  6. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable or Disable to verify the change.
    Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at the account level and needs to be changed at that level.
  7. (Optional) If you want to prevent users in the group from changing this setting, click the lock icon unlocked-button.png , and then click Lock to confirm the setting.
  8. (Optional) Click the pencil icon to select which languages you want to be available for captioning. 
  9. (Optional) Click the
  10. Click Save to confirm any changes. 

User

To enable automated captioning for meetings or webinars you host:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Settings.
  3. Click the Meeting tab.
  4. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Automated captions toggle to enable or disable it.
  5. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable or Disable to verify the change.
    Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at either the group or account level. You need to contact your Zoom admin.
  6. (Optional) Click the pencil icon to select which languages you want to be available for captioning. 
  7. (Optional) Click the
  8. Click Save to confirm any changes.