How to use Microsoft Teams closed captioning in meetings

To use Microsoft Teams closed captioning, join a meeting, open More actions (the three dots), and select Captions. Teams displays speech as text while people talk. Live captions are not saved; use transcription if you need a written record afterward.

Turn on closed captions in a Teams meeting

1. Join your meeting in Teams for Windows or Mac.
2. Open More actions in the meeting toolbar.
3. Select Captions and wait for someone to speak.
4. To adjust readability, hover over the caption area and open Open caption settings.

You do not need to start a channel meeting or create a new team. Look in the active meeting window, rather than the main Teams chat window. Microsoft now lets users reorder and pin supported meeting controls, so their positions can differ. Its meeting controls guide explains the toolbar and overflow menu.

On iPhone or Android, tap More options > Turn on live captions. Use Turn off live captions to hide them.

Set the spoken language and caption appearance

In caption settings, set Meeting spoken language to the language being spoken, then select Update. Under Caption styles, adjust text size, color, lines, or positioning where available.

If transcription is running and you cannot change the spoken language, ask the organizer or transcription initiator to update it. Avoid stopping another person's transcript merely to change a setting.

Can Teams translate captions?

Translation requires an eligible Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot license. An eligible organizer can make it available to everyone; an individually licensed attendee can use it personally. Choose Translate to in caption settings when available. See Microsoft's current caption instructions for the supported languages and interface.

Save a transcript instead of live captions

Captions and transcription serve different purposes. Captions help you follow the conversation as it happens. A transcript creates a written record with speaker attribution and timestamps that authorized participants can revisit.

To start transcription without recording video, open More actions > Transcribe, choose the spoken language, and select Confirm. Teams notifies participants. Availability depends on your meeting role, organizer settings, and organization policy.

Afterward, open the past meeting chat and go to Recap > Transcript. Organizers and co-organizers can normally use Download to export a Word (.docx) or WebVTT (.vtt) file; other participants may have different permissions. Microsoft's transcript guide covers access and downloads.

The older workflow involving Stream Classic, an administrator account, and My Content > Meetings is unnecessary for this process. For important decisions, check names, numbers, and commitments against the discussion before treating an automatic transcript as final notes.

Fix missing or inaccurate captions

• No caption command: check the meeting toolbar and overflow menu. If it remains unavailable, ask IT whether your assigned meeting policy permits live captions. Microsoft documents this as a per-user setting.
• Captions work, but transcription does not: these have separate policy controls. Permission to view captions does not automatically grant permission to start or download a transcript.
• No saved text afterward: enabling captions alone does not create a transcript. Verify transcription was enabled during the meeting.

See Microsoft's caption and transcription policy documentation for the administrator settings. Give IT the affected account and meeting details so it can investigate the relevant policy.

For clearer speech recognition, reduce background noise, speak directly into the microphone, and let one person speak at a time. If a word matters, repeat it clearly or put it in meeting chat rather than relying on a caption guess.

When to arrange human captioning

For a meeting that needs a professional captioner, ask the organizer about Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART). This is a separate service delivered by a trained person, rather than automatic speech recognition. Arrange it before the meeting so the captioner can connect and check the setup. Microsoft explains the organizer's responsibilities in its CART captioning guide.