Whether it's for accessibility, a platform that requires captions, or viewers who watch with the sound off, most videos need subtitles eventually. You can generate an SRT subtitle file for any video directly on your Mac, without uploading the footage to an online auto-caption tool first.
What an SRT file actually is
SRT (SubRip Subtitle) is the plain-text caption format almost every video platform and editor accepts — a simple list of timestamps paired with the words spoken at that moment. Get one right, and it drops straight into YouTube, a video editor, or a course platform's caption field.
Generating captions with igooor
Drop your video into igooor from the menu bar, the same way you would for a plain transcript. igooor transcribes the spoken audio entirely on your Mac and, alongside the plain text, can output a properly timed SRT file matched to when each line is actually said in the video.
Why timing accuracy matters
A transcript with the right words but wrong timing is nearly useless as a subtitle file — captions that lag or lead the speech are distracting at best and unwatchable at worst. Because the SRT comes from the same on-device pass that produced the transcript, the timestamps line up with the actual audio, not a rough estimate.
Why not just use a free online caption generator
Most of them work the same way: upload your video, wait in a queue, and hope the free tier's length or resolution limit doesn't kick in. That also means your footage — including anything unreleased or unlisted — sits on a third-party server for however long processing takes. Doing it on your Mac skips the upload, the queue, and the size caps, and nothing leaves your device. igooor is free to try for 14 days, no card required.
Working from a recorded meeting instead?
The same process works for call and meeting recordings — see transcribing Zoom and meeting recordings on Mac if that's your source material, or the broader guide to transcribing video to text for anything else with picture and sound.