With a single tap, Live Caption automatically captions speech on your device. You can use it on media like videos, podcasts, phone calls, video calls, and audio messages.
Important:
- Some of these steps work only on Android 10 and up. Learn how to check your Android version.
- Some of these steps require you to touch the screen.
- If there’s no “Live Caption,” please check with your phone manufacturer.
- When you use “Live Caption” for the first time, you need to connect to Wi-Fi to download the default language pack.
Contents
Understand tone and non-speech sounds with Expressive captions
Type responses during a phone call
Turn on Live Caption
Live Caption works on:
- Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 series in English.
- Pixel 4 and Pixel 5 series and selected Android phones in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Hindi, and Spanish.
- Pixel 6+ and selected Android phones in Android U+ support English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Hindi, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese.
To turn Live Caption on or off:
- Press the volume button.
- Under the volume controls, tap More
Live Caption
Tips:
- If these steps don't work, try to search for "Live Caption" in Settings and turn on Live Caption.
- When "Live Caption" is on, captions appear for speech in audio playing on your device.
All captions are processed locally, never stored, and never leave your device.
Understand tone & non-speech sounds with Expressive captions
Important: Available in the US in English on any Android device that has Live Caption running on Android 14 and above. Results can be inaccurate sometimes.
You can use this feature to better understand the tone and non-speech sounds. To customize and turn “Expressive captions” on or off:
- On your device, open Settings
- Tap Expressive captions.
- By default, “Expressive captions” is on.
- Turn Use expressive captions on and off.
- Or, in the “Live Caption" box, you can also tap Expressive captions
.
- Or, in the “Live Caption" box, you can also tap Expressive captions
- To highlight high intensity with capitalized words, tap Add styles to captions.
- To show detected sounds, like laughter, applause, and music, tap Show sound labels.
Adjust the caption box
- To move the caption box: Touch and hold, then drag up or down.
- To hide captions and turn off Live Caption: Drag the caption box off the bottom of your screen.
- To expand the caption box: Double-tap to change from 2 lines up to 12 lines.
- To resize the caption box: Drag the bar at the bottom of the caption box.
Change Live Caption settings
- On your device, open Settings
.
- Tap Accessibility
- Under Settings, you can find or change these settings:
- For supported languages: To manage and select your preferred language, tap Language & translations.
- To add a language: Tap Add a language
.
- To select your preferred languages:
- Under “Preferred language,” tap Translate captions to
- Select from:
- Ask to translate
- Automatically translate
- Don’t translate
- Select OK.
- Under “Preferred language,” tap Translate captions to
- To remove a language: Under “Caption languages,” tap Remove
.
- To add a language: Tap Add a language
- To translate captions, you will need to have Live Translate feature enabled. This feature is only available on Pixel 6+ devices.
- For detected languages: Turn Suggest detected languages on or off.
- Hide or show profanity.
- Hide or show sound labels, such as laughter and applause.
- Hide or show the Live Caption icon in volume control.
- Turn call captioning on or off.
- Choose the voice for typed responses during calls.
- For supported languages: To manage and select your preferred language, tap Language & translations.
Tip: To change the caption size, style, and color, go to Caption preferences.
Set up Live Caption for phone calls
You can get captions with calls on Pixel and selected Android phones.
To talk with someone on the phone, type responses in real time. The system reads your messages aloud. This feature doesn’t translate and only allows you to converse in your current language.
Tips:
- During calls, to type on the Live Caption dialog box, tap Keyboard
.
- If there’s no Keyboard icon, check if "Type responses during calls" is turned on from the Settings. To check, tap Settings
Type responses during a phone call
Important: Available on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro above.
Use this feature to make calls without speech. You get captions of what the other person says and you can type in responses in real time. Your messages are read aloud by the system. This feature doesn’t translate and only allows you to converse in your current language.
- On your phone, open Settings
- Tap Accessibility
- Turn on Type responses during calls.
During calls, a notification informs you that call captions is on. To start typing, tap Keyboard
Battery use & other notes
When you’re on calls or when you play media, Live Caption uses more battery. Live Caption turns off automatically in battery saver mode.
Other notes about Live Caption:
- Live Caption isn't intended for calls with more than one other person.
- During calls, if you mute your side during the captions disclosure announcement, the announcement is muted. Make sure that the other person knows captions are on.
- Captions might be unavailable for some media and calling apps.
- Live Caption works best on audio with clear speech and low background noise.
- Live Caption doesn't work on music.
- Live Caption doesn't use mobile data or an internet connection. All audio and captions are processed on the device and are never stored or sent to Google.
Get more help
For more help with Live Caption, contact the Google Disability Support team.