How to
How to add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve.
Subtitle tracks, automatic generation and the Studio catch — plus what to do when the free edition will not generate them.
In DaVinci Resolve, add a subtitle track on the Edit page and either type cues manually or use Create Subtitles from Audio — automatic generation has historically been a Studio-only feature, so check what your version offers before planning around it.
Resolve handles subtitles as a real track type rather than as text layers, which is the right design: cues have timings, you can navigate them, and the track exports as a subtitle file or burns into the render. Adding one is straightforward.
The part that trips people up is automatic generation. Creating subtitles from audio has been a DaVinci Resolve Studio feature for most of its life, and recent releases have started bringing a limited form of it to the free edition — so what you can do depends on your exact version, and a tutorial written six months ago may not describe your install.
Add a subtitle track
On the Edit page, add a subtitle track to the timeline. Cues live on it as clips with real in and out points.
Create Subtitles from Audio, if you have it
Where available, this generates cues from the timeline audio. Availability depends on your edition and version — check yours rather than a tutorial.
Style on the Inspector
Font, size, colour, position and background come from the subtitle track’s settings in the Inspector, applied to the whole track.
Burn in or export the file
On the Deliver page, choose whether to burn subtitles into the render or export them as a separate subtitle file.
If your edition will not generate subtitles
You have three options, and they differ mostly in how much of your evening they cost.
- Type them manually
- Works in every edition. Realistically an hour per ten minutes of speech, and the timing is only as good as your patience.
- Buy Studio
- A one-off licence that also unlocks a lot of unrelated things. Worth it if you are in Resolve daily; a lot of money for captions alone.
- Import an SRT
- Generate the subtitles elsewhere, download an SRT, and import it onto a subtitle track. Resolve reads SRT files natively.
- Caption outside entirely
- For short-form, burn styled captions in elsewhere and bring the finished file back. Resolve’s subtitle styling is a track-wide font and colour, not per-word motion.
The limit that applies to every edition
Even in Studio, Resolve’s subtitle track is a subtitle track: one font, one colour, one position for the whole track, cue by cue. That is correct for a film deliverable and it is not what short-form captions look like.
There is no per-word highlight, no word-by-word reveal, no one-keyword-pops-in-colour, and no full-frame typography. Building those in Resolve means leaving the subtitle system and animating Text+ nodes on the Fusion page — which is real work, per video, repeated every time the edit changes.
For anything going to Reels, Shorts, TikTok or Status, the faster path is to caption the cut here — word-level timing, 242 styles, per-word colour — and treat Resolve as the grading and finishing tool it is best at being. The free SRT download imports onto a Resolve subtitle track if all you wanted was the transcription.
How it works
Finish the cut and the grade in Resolve
Export the finished video without subtitles.
Caption the short-form versions here
242 styles, word-level timing, per-word colour. The video file is never uploaded.
Or import an SRT back into Resolve
Free unlimited SRT downloads drop straight onto a Resolve subtitle track when you only want the transcription.
Common questions
How do I add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve?
On the Edit page, add a subtitle track to the timeline. Cues sit on it as clips with real in and out points, and the track’s font, size, colour and position are set in the Inspector. On the Deliver page you choose whether to burn the subtitles into the render or export them as a separate subtitle file.
Can the free version of Resolve generate subtitles automatically?
Automatic generation from audio has been a DaVinci Resolve Studio feature for most of its history, and recent releases have begun bringing a limited form to the free edition. Because it has been changing, check what your specific version offers rather than trusting a tutorial — including this one. If yours will not generate, importing an SRT onto a subtitle track works in every edition.
Can I import an SRT into DaVinci Resolve?
Yes, on any edition — Resolve reads SRT files natively onto a subtitle track. That is the standard workaround when automatic generation is unavailable, and SRT downloads here are free and unlimited on every plan.
Can Resolve do word-by-word animated captions?
Not through the subtitle system, which applies one font, colour and position to the whole track. Per-word highlights and word-by-word reveals mean animating Text+ nodes in Fusion by hand, repeated whenever the edit changes. For short-form, captioning outside Resolve and bringing the finished file back is considerably faster.
