# How to add captions and subtitles to iMovie

**By [Jamie Sutherland](https://sonix.ai/authors/jamie-sutherland), Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer**

Adding captions or subtitles to your iMovie is easy when you use automated transcription and subtitling tools like Sonix. Fast, easy, and affordable.

- Published: 2020-11-17
- Updated: 2026-08-05
- Category: [Education](https://sonix.ai/resources/topics/education/)
- Reading time: 2 min
- Language: English
- HTML version: https://sonix.ai/resources/how-to-add-captions-and-subtitles-to-imovie/

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[Apple’s iMovie](https://www.apple.com/imovie/) is a video editing platform made for iOS and Mac devices. If you want subtitles on your iMovie videos you’ve come to the right place.

Unfortunately, iMovie doesn’t provide a mechanism to upload caption files so you’ll have to add them manually frame by frame if you want to do it inside iMovie. However, there is a faster, better and easier way using [automated subtitle software](https://sonix.ai) like Sonix.

## **4 simple steps to automate subtitles for your iMovie videos**

**Step 1:** Upload video to [Sonix](https://sonix.ai) and receive automated transcript

**Step 2:** Edit transcript

**Step 3:** Click the “Subtitles” drop-down menu and choose character length / duration

**Step 4:** Click “Burn-in” under “Subtitles” menu

That’s it. It will take a few minutes to render your video and you’ll have a video with subtitles you can share anywhere.

![](https://sonix.ai/resources/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Automated-subtitles-1-970x513.png)*Automated subtitles using Sonix. Fast, easy, accurate, and affordable.*

If you really want to do it manually inside iMovie, here are 7 steps to manually add subtitles to iMovie:

1. Inside iMovie click “File”, “Import Media” and select your file.
2. Drag your file into the Timeline inside iMovie.
3. Click “Titles” and select a title.
4. Drag the title down to the timeline and position it with the speaker.
5. Once the caption is placed in the Timeline you can remove excess text boxes.
6. It’s a good idea to play back what you’ve just created to make sure the text aligns with what the speaker is saying.
7. Edit as necessary and repeat for following frames/scenes.

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*Source: https://sonix.ai/resources/how-to-add-captions-and-subtitles-to-imovie/. Markdown rendering of the page for AI and agent readers.*