Arabic Captions for Shorts
Add Arabic captions to any YouTube Short automatically. Upload the vertical clip, get word-by-word Arabic subtitles timed to the speech and burned into the frame — free, no watermark, full 9:16 quality out.
Arabic short-form captions have to be shaped right-to-left with the letters joined correctly — a wrong font breaks every word into isolated letters — so the styles here use proper Arabic shaping and keep to two or three words a card inside the 9:16 safe zone.
- Arabic auto-detected
- Word-by-word timing
- 9:16 safe zones
- Free, no watermark
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What Arabic captions for Shorts have to get right
Two problems at once: the YouTube Shorts frame, and Arabic itself. These are the details that decide whether the captions help or get in the way.
Clear of the Shorts interface
The Shorts badge and title sit at the top, the channel handle, description and progress bar at the bottom, and the action rail on the right. Arabic captions default to the middle third so they are never covered.
Timed to the syllable
Word-level timestamps drive the highlight, so the text keeps pace with fast speech instead of lagging behind it.
Burned in, not a CC track
The Shorts player buries the captions button where a scrolling viewer never presses it. Arabic text rendered into the picture is the only version that reliably gets read.
Modern Standard and the major dialects
MSA for formal and broadcast content, plus Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine and Maghrebi speech, which is what most social and interview video actually sounds like.
Bidirectional text handled properly
An English product name inside an Arabic sentence has to run left-to-right inside a right-to-left line. Exports carry the correct directional handling so mixed lines do not scramble in the player.
How to add Arabic captions to Shorts
Vertical clip in, captioned video out, ready to post.
- 1
Upload the vertical clip
Drop in your 9:16 export from CapCut, Premiere, Final Cut or your phone. No cropping to a supported shape and no re-encode first.
- 2
Generate Arabic captions
The model transcribes the Arabic audio into Arabic script, keeps any Latin-script names in the correct reading order, and times each line to the speech. Lines are then broken into the short groups short-form viewers actually read.
- 3
Style, position and export
Pick a caption style, keep it inside the Shorts safe zone with one control, and download the MP4 with Arabic captions burned in, ready to upload.
Why Arabic Shorts need on-screen captions
The Shorts feed is a muted, autoplaying, thumb-driven surface. A Arabic-speaking viewer lands mid-sentence and gives the video about a second. Sound is off by default and often stays off for the whole session, so on-screen text is the primary channel, not a secondary one — the hook has to be readable before it is audible.
YouTube's auto-generated captions for Shorts are a subtitle track: hidden behind a button, rendered in YouTube's style, and unreliable for many languages. Captions burned into the frame are in your font and colour, sit where you put them, and are there whether or not anyone taps CC — and they survive when the clip is downloaded and reposted to Reels or TikTok.
They also carry the middle. Retention on a Short falls off in the first few seconds, and Arabic text moving in time with the speech gives the eye something to track — a reason to stay through the setup and reach the payoff.
Muted by default
Most Shorts impressions happen with no audio. Without captions the script does not reach those viewers.
No CC button worth pressing
The Shorts player hides captions. Burned-in text is the only version a scrolling viewer will see.
Retention through the setup
Moving text holds attention through the seconds before the payoff, which is where Shorts lose people.
Full 9:16 out
1080x1920 in comes back as 1080x1920 — no crop, no downscale, no watermark.
Arabic on a 9:16 screen
Arabic short-form captions have to be shaped right-to-left with the letters joined correctly — a wrong font breaks every word into isolated letters — so the styles here use proper Arabic shaping and keep to two or three words a card inside the 9:16 safe zone.
The transcription is the same one behind the Arabic subtitle generator: the model transcribes the Arabic audio into Arabic script, keeps any Latin-script names in the correct reading order, and times each line to the speech. For Shorts, the result is then split into three- or four-word cards and rendered with a font that has the full Arabic character set, so nothing falls back to a box or a smudge at phone size.
More Arabic captions, and more languages
The other places this Arabic export can go, and the languages people caption most often for Shorts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Specific to Arabic on YouTube Shorts.
How do I add Arabic captions to a YouTube Short?
Upload the vertical clip here, let the transcription generate and time the Arabic captions, style them, and download the MP4 with the text burned in. Upload that file as your Short — there is nothing to enable on YouTube.
Are YouTube's automatic Arabic captions good enough for Shorts?
They are a hidden CC track in YouTube's own style, and accuracy varies a lot by language. Burned-in Arabic captions from Caption Maker are visible to every viewer, in your style, and can be corrected before you publish.
Is there a watermark on the Short I download?
No. The file is your clip at full resolution with the captions rendered in and nothing else — no logo, no end card, no watermark.
Where should captions sit in a Short?
In the middle third, roughly between 40% and 60% of the height, clear of the Shorts badge at the top, the handle and progress bar at the bottom, and the action rail on the right.
Can I use the same export for Reels and TikTok?
Yes. The frame, safe zones and styling are the same 9:16 problem, so one captioned export can be posted to all three.
Does it transcribe Arabic dialects or only Modern Standard Arabic?
Both. Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine and Maghrebi speech are recognised alongside MSA. If you want MSA output from dialect audio, transcribe first and standardise the wording in the editor.
Will right-to-left text display correctly in my player?
Yes. Files are exported as UTF-8 with correct directional handling, which covers YouTube, VLC, browsers and standard editing software. The preview reflects how the line will actually be drawn.
Can I edit my captions before exporting?
Yes. Correct the transcript, adjust timings, choose a caption style and then export the finished video or a clean SRT or VTT file.
Do I need an account to use Caption Maker?
Caption Maker is live and free to start. Create an account with your email or your Google account, and you can upload, caption and export straight away.
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