How to Use Live Captions in macOS 13

Live Captions is an accessibility feature introduced in macOS 13 (Ventura) that provides real-time, on-device speech-to-text transcription for any spoken audio. This guide explains what the feature does, the system requirements needed to run it, and the step-by-step process to enable and configure Live Captions across your Mac's apps, media, and FaceTime calls.

What Are Live Captions?

Live Captions automatically transcribes dialogue from any audio source playing on your Mac, as well as live conversations picked up by your Mac's microphone. Because the processing occurs locally using the Neural Engine, your audio remains private and never leaves the device.

The feature works system-wide across:

  • Video and music streaming platforms
  • Podcasts and social media feeds
  • Video conferencing tools (such as FaceTime and Zoom)
  • Live in-person conversations using the internal microphone

Note: Live Captions requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, or later) and requires the primary language to be set to a supported language (such as English - US/Canada).

How to Enable Live Captions

  1. Click the Apple menu () in the top-left corner of the screen and select System Settings.
  2. Scroll down the left sidebar and click Accessibility.
  3. In the right pane, locate the Hearing section and click Live Captions.
  4. Turn on the toggle switch next to Live Captions.

A floating Live Captions window will appear on your desktop. It will automatically begin transcribing any audio currently playing through your speakers or picked up by your microphone.

How to Use and Manage the Live Captions Window

Once enabled, you can interact with the floating controller:

  • Pause/Resume: Click the pause button on the panel to stop transcribing temporarily.
  • Microphone Mode: Click the microphone icon to switch between transcribing internal system audio and transcribing room audio via your Mac's microphone.
  • Minimize: Click the minimize button to reduce the window to a small icon on the side of the screen when not actively reading captions.
  • Move and Resize: Click and drag the window to reposition it, or drag the edges to adjust its width and height.

How to Customize Live Captions

You can adjust how captions look and behave from the same Accessibility > Live Captions settings menu:

  • Appearance: Adjust text font, font size, text color, and background color to improve readability.
  • Window Opacity: Adjust the transparency slider to make the background of the captions window more or less transparent when idle.
  • Live Captions in FaceTime: Toggle this setting on to automatically transcribe conversations during FaceTime calls, including speaker attribution to identify who is talking.