Add Text to Video – Titles, Captions & Text Overlays
Add text to video clips in your browser: a title, a caption, a label or a call to action. Type it, choose one of five fonts, a colour and an outline, box or shadow, then drag it into place on the live preview and set when it appears and disappears. The text is drawn sharply on every frame at the video’s own resolution, with no watermark and no upload.
- Runs on your device
- WebCodecs · GPU
- Canvas · GPU
- Works offline
Updated
How to add text to a video
Step 1: Drop your video on the box above.
Step 2: Type your text, then pick a Font, Size, Text colour and Style (Outline keeps text readable on any background).
Step 3: Drag the text into place on the preview. Set Show from and Hide at to time it, or leave both at 0:00 to show it for the whole video.
Step 4: Press Process and download the video with the text burned in.
Good to know
Settings explained
- Size
- Relative to the video height, so it scales with any resolution.
- Show from
- Leave both times at 0:00 to show the text for the whole video.
Formats
Batch-friendly: add many files and they are processed one after another — if one fails, the rest still finish.
How it runs
- Hardware video engine
- Video is decoded and encoded by your device’s media hardware through WebCodecs — usually several times faster than real time.
- GPU canvas
- Pixels are drawn and composited with the GPU-accelerated canvas.
Text styles: which one stays readable?
Readable text over moving video needs contrast. Outline and Boxed work on any background; Plain and Shadow suit calm, dark or blurry areas.
| Style | Looks like | Best on |
|---|---|---|
| Outline (default) | Letters with a dark edge around them | Busy, bright or changing backgrounds; meme-style titles |
| Boxed | Text on a solid colour panel (85% opacity) | Subtitles, labels, lower thirds, call-to-action text |
| Shadow | Text with a soft drop shadow | Clean, cinematic titles over darker shots |
| Plain | Flat letters, no edge | Solid areas such as a sky or a wall |
How big should text on a video be?
Size is a percentage of the video’s height, so the same setting looks the same on a 720p clip and a 4K one. The default of 7% reads well on a phone held upright. Use larger sizes for one- or two-word titles and smaller ones for longer captions.
| Size setting | Landscape 1920×1080 | Vertical 1080×1920 | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4% | 43 px | 77 px | Credits, small labels |
| 7% (default) | 76 px | 134 px | Captions and most titles |
| 12% | 130 px | 230 px | Short hook titles |
| 20% (maximum) | 216 px | 384 px | One word, full-screen impact |
How to make text appear at a certain time in a video
Set Show from to the moment the text should appear and Hide at to the moment it should go, for example 0:03 and 0:08 for a title that stays five seconds. Leave Hide at at 0:00 to keep the text until the end. Each run adds one text block; to add a second line at another time, run the finished video through again with new text. For many timed lines, a subtitle file is quicker: burn subtitles into video takes an SRT and draws every line at its time.
Add text to a video on iPhone, Android or a computer
The iPhone Photos app has no text tool for videos, and gallery editors on Android vary by brand. This page works the same in Safari and Chrome on phones and in any desktop browser: drag the text with your finger or mouse, and the preview shows exactly what will be exported. The result is an H.264 MP4 with the original sound copied, ready for Reels, TikTok, YouTube or WhatsApp.
Tips & troubleshooting
Want words that follow the speech automatically? Auto captions transcribe the audio on your device and burn styled captions in.
Adding your name or logo to many videos? Add Watermark to Video applies the same mark to a whole batch.
Making a GIF with text? Use Add Text to GIF so the GIF stays small.
Keep text away from the bottom fifth of vertical videos: app buttons and captions cover it on TikTok and Reels.
Add Text to Video FAQ
How do I add text to an existing video for free?
Drop the video here, type the text, style it, drag it into place and press Process. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark of ours.
How do I add a title to a video?
Type the title, choose the Heavy display font at 10–12%, drag it to the centre and set Hide at to a few seconds in, for example 0:04. The title shows at the start and disappears.
Does adding text reduce video quality?
The video is re-encoded once as H.264 so the text can be drawn into the frames, using a higher quality setting than plain conversions, so the difference is hard to see. The sound is copied untouched when it is AAC or Opus, as in most phone videos.
Can I add text in Hindi, Arabic or other scripts?
Yes. Characters that the bundled fonts do not cover are drawn with your device’s own system font, so most scripts display. Check the preview before exporting.
How do I add text to a video automatically?
Use Auto captions: an on-device AI model turns the speech into timed captions, which you can review, style and burn into the video.
Is your video uploaded anywhere?
No. Your video is processed by your own browser on your own device. There is no server that receives files, so nothing is uploaded, stored or shared. You can even switch to airplane mode once the page has loaded.