How to turn on and off Captions on Apple TV: Guide 2025

With subtitles on Apple TV, you can watch your favorite movies and series from Netflix, Disney+, or HBO Max and never miss a detail. An unexpected noise prevented you from learning the name of a critical protagonist. No problem: you'll see it written on screen.

Because of their great advantage of making content accessible to all audiences, subtitles are all the rage, and there are now robust automatic subtitle generation programs.

If you do not know how to add subtitles on Apple TV, we invite you to read this post.

In addition to the step-by-step instructions to enable and disable them, we show you how to customize them according to your preferences or those of your companions.

Benefits of Captions on Apple TV

Closed captioning on Apple TV converts audio and some key elements of productions, such as special effects, to written text and presents it on screen. Essentially, they seek to enhance the viewing experience by offering viewers the following:

• Accessibility: The World Health Organization (WHO) states that more than 5% of the world's population suffers from hearing loss. Thanks to subtitles, this vital part of the audience can still understand and enjoy audiovisual productions.
• Better compression: one viewer may prefer to watch and another to listen. Subtitles cater to this diversity and ensure everyone can perceive and understand the content.
• Facilitate learning: Subtitles help improve language comprehension by reinforcing the audio content with the written text on-screen. This makes it easier for viewers to learn grammar by reading and listening to the pronunciation of words simultaneously.

How to Enable Closed Captioning on Apple TV

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to enable closed captioning on Apple TV.

1. Open the main menu and navigate with the Apple TV remote control until you get to the "Settings" option; it is the icon with a gear image.

2. Look for the "Accessibility" option: in the settings menu, scroll to that option and click on it.

3. When the accessibility menu options are displayed, click "Subtitles and Captioning".

4. Click on "Closed Captions and SDH". It will change from Off to On, and they will be activated.

This is the sequence of steps for setting Closed Captions (CC) and subtitles on Apple TV. With these captions, the sound effects will also be identified on screen in addition to the audio text.

How to Configure and Customize Captions on Apple TV

Once the subtitles are activated, you can customize them as you prefer; these are the steps:

1. Open "Settings" on Apple TV
2. Select "Accessibility".
3. Enter "Subtitles and Captioning".
4. Click on "Style" and then customize the appearance of the subtitles to your liking.

You will be able to adjust the font, size, color, and background and check that your choices are the right ones for fluent reading.

How to Disable Closed Captions on Apple TV

If you want to turn off subtitles on Apple TV, here are the steps:

1. Open "Settings".
2. Select "Accessibility".
3. Choose "Subtitles and Captioning".
4. Uncheck the "Closed Captions and SDH" option and set it to "Off".

The subtitles will no longer appear in content compatible with these steps.

Additional Tips

To improve your experience with your Apple TV device, consider the following:

• Update Apple TV: keep your device updated to the latest software version to ensure proper operation of all functions.
• Check compatibility: Make sure that the content you want to watch supports the closed captioning feature; some content does not have built-in captions.
• Consider using third-party options. If Apple TV subtitles are not what you expected, explore third-party applications. We at ScriptMe offer an automatic closed captioning service with more advanced features and better customization options.

Conclusion

We have told you how to enable subtitles on Apple TV. By doing so, everyone will be able to have more accessibility and better compression of the programming content they choose to watch.

Doing so will allow you to optimize your content viewing experience on your Apple TV device.

Also, remember that if you want to subtitle your videos, TV productions such as documentaries or reality shows, or transcribe any other file in ScriptMe, you will find the perfect ally to do it fast, accurately, and in minutes.