How to add captions to a video on iPhone

Most short-form video is watched on mute, so captions are not optional anymore. Here is how to add them to a clip on your phone, on device, and have them burned in so they play everywhere.

Updated July 2026 · by the Reelvana team

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Why captions matter for short-form

A large share of Reels, TikToks, and Shorts play with the sound off, especially in the first few seconds while someone decides whether to keep watching. Captions hold that attention, make your video accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and tend to lift watch time. For a lot of creators they are the single highest-return thing you can add to a clip.

The steps

1. Bring your clip in. Record inside Reelvana or import a video you already have from your library.
2. Generate the captions. Open the captions panel and tap generate. Reelvana transcribes your speech on the device with Whisper. Your video never leaves your phone, and it works offline once the model is on the phone.
3. Pick a style. Choose from fifteen styles, from boxed and bold to minimal and clean, plus premium looks like a karaoke highlight that pops word by word as you speak. Set the position, size, and caps.
4. Fix anything misheard. Edit the text so any tricky word or name is correct before it is locked in.
5. Export. Reelvana burns the captions into the video at export, so they are part of the picture and play on every platform without a separate subtitle file.

Burned-in captions vs a subtitle file

There are two ways to caption a video. A sidecar subtitle file, like SRT or VTT, rides alongside the video and the player draws the text. That is common on YouTube long-form, but it depends on the platform supporting and displaying the file, and many short-form apps do not. Burned-in captions are drawn directly into the video frames, so the words are always there no matter where the clip is posted or downloaded. For Reels, TikTok, and Shorts, burned-in is what you want, and that is what Reelvana produces.

Arabic and other languages

Reelvana transcribes Arabic on the device and lays the captions out right to left. You can pick a larger speech model for higher accuracy on a specific dialect. The same on-device approach applies whatever the language.

Doing it without uploading

Plenty of caption tools work by sending your video to a server, running the transcription there, and sending it back. That is a privacy trade-off and it needs a connection. Reelvana transcribes on the phone by default, so your video never leaves the device, there is no ad SDK involved, and captioning keeps working in airplane mode. Prefer top accuracy, great for Arabic? An optional Cloud model sends just the audio track for transcription, never your video.

Captions are one step, not a whole app

In Reelvana, captioning sits inside the same flow as recording, the teleprompter, silence cleanup, timeline editing, background blur, watermarks, and sharing. So you can shoot, caption, trim, brand, and post a clip without leaving the app or exporting between steps.

Common questions

How do I add captions to a video on my iPhone?

Open the clip in Reelvana, tap generate on the captions panel to transcribe on device, pick a style, adjust position and size, then export. The captions are burned in, so they play everywhere without a separate file.

Are the captions burned in or a separate file?

Burned in at export, so they are visible on any platform and player without uploading a sidecar SRT or VTT. That is what Reels, TikTok, and Shorts expect.

Can I add Arabic captions?

Yes. Arabic is transcribed on the device and laid out right to left, with a selectable model for dialect accuracy, and your video never leaves your phone.

Do I need an internet connection?

No. Transcription runs on device with Whisper, so it works offline once the model is downloaded.

Can I fix a word it got wrong?

Yes. Captions are editable before export, so you can correct any misheard word and adjust timing, caps, position, and size first.