Subtitle translator
Translate a whole subtitle file, from one movie to a full season
Upload one or more .srt or .vtt files, choose a language, and get every subtitle line translated with its original timing, order and numbering. The first part is free with no sign-up, and the whole job, a movie or a season of up to 30 files, is $5 as one payment, with no subscription. A chatbot handles a short clip well, but a two-hour movie often runs to well over a thousand lines, so it tends to stop partway, merge or renumber lines, and hand back a file that drifts out of sync. This tool translates the file in small blocks, checks that every line comes back, and copies the timings straight from your file.
- First part free, no account needed
- Whole job $5, one payment: a movie or a season of up to 30 files
- Every line translated, never merged, split or skipped
- Timings, order and numbering copied from your file
- 41 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil) and Chinese
- Translation only or bilingual subtitles, as SRT or VTT
Every line, on its timing.
The numbers and time codes of your file are kept exactly; only the words change. Right-to-left languages get the marks players need to show punctuation in the right place.
Demo scene written for this page; the Persian lines are real output from the tool.
What you get back
You get your subtitle files back, translated, with the same names plus a language code, for example movie.fa.srt. One file downloads as that file; several files come as one ZIP. Before you download, every line is shown on screen with its time code, and you can edit any of them.
- The same number of subtitle lines as your file, in the same order, each with its original start and end time.
- Formatting kept: tags such as <i> for italics and position codes such as {\an8} stay with the words they belong to.
- Line breaks kept within each subtitle, aiming for at most two lines of about 42 characters.
- For Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Hebrew, an invisible right-to-left mark at the start of each line, so players put punctuation at the correct end.
- A UTF-8 file in SRT or VTT, whichever your player needs. VTT position settings are kept when your source is VTT.
Translating subtitles with a chatbot, and with this tool
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini translate dialogue well, and for a short clip they are a fine choice. The trouble with a subtitle file is rarely the quality of a single line. It is getting every line back, in order, with timings a video player can still use.
| Your situation | A chatbot | This tool |
|---|---|---|
| A short clip with a few dozen lines | Usually translates it well | Translates it and gives you the file back |
| A two-hour movie | Tends to stop partway or ask you to say "continue" | Translates every line in blocks, up to 5,000 lines per job |
| Line numbers and timings | Sometimes merges, splits or renumbers lines, so the file drifts out of sync | Timings are copied from your file; only the text is translated |
| A whole season, one file per episode | One file per chat, and you keep track of what is done | Upload up to 30 files as one job and download one ZIP |
| Italics and position codes | May drop or rewrite them | Instructed to keep tags such as <i> and {\an8} in place |
| Arabic or Persian in a video player | Plain text, so punctuation can show at the wrong end of the line | Adds a right-to-left mark to every line so players get the direction right |
How to translate a subtitle file
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1
Upload your .srt or .vtt files
Drop in one file or every episode of a season, choose the language you want, and pick translation only or bilingual. The source language is recognized from the text.
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2
Check the first part free
The first part of the translation appears on screen with its time codes. Read it and edit anything in place. No account is needed for this step.
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3
Unlock the rest and download
Happy with the first part? Unlock the whole job for $5, then download your translated files as SRT or VTT.
Why long subtitle files trip up general AI assistants
Translating a line of dialogue is easy for a chat assistant. A subtitle file is something else: hundreds or thousands of numbered blocks, each with a start time, an end time and one or two short lines of text. To translate it in a chat, the assistant has to write the whole file back out, numbers and time codes included, and a long file does not fit in one reply. It often stops partway, asks you to continue, or quietly shortens the end.
Structure is the second problem. A chatbot writes for reading, so it may join two short lines into one sentence, split a long one, or renumber the blocks. Every change of that kind shifts what comes after it, and the subtitles fall out of step with the video.
This tool never asks a model to rewrite the file. It reads your file into separate lines, sends only the text, in blocks of up to 60 lines, and requires one translation back for every line, under the same number. If a line is missing, it asks for that line again. If it is still missing, the original line stays in its place, so the file is always complete. The timings are then copied from your file, unchanged.
What people translate
- Movies and documentaries, to watch in their own language
- A full season of a series, one file per episode
- Course videos, lectures and webinars for an audience abroad
- Their own YouTube or social videos, to add subtitles in more languages
- Bilingual subtitles for learning a language while watching
- Interviews and training videos for colleagues in other countries
What it does not do
It translates subtitle files, not video. It accepts .srt and .vtt files only: .ass, .ssa, .sub, .idx and .sup files, subtitles burned into the picture, and video files are not supported. If your video has no subtitle file at all, you first need a transcript of the audio: our Long Audio & Video to Text tool makes one with timestamps.
It does not re-time subtitles. The translation follows the timings in your file, so if the original is out of sync with your copy of the video, the translation will be too. The two-line, 42-character layout is an instruction to the model, not a hard rule, so a long sentence in a wordy language can come out longer.
It is machine translation. It is well suited to watching, sharing and getting a first version done quickly. For a commercial release, a festival or broadcast, have a human subtitler review it.
Getting a good result
Start from the subtitle file that matches your copy of the video; files made for a different release often carry different timings. If letters in your file already look wrong in a text editor, save it as UTF-8 first. Files in UTF-8, UTF-16 and the common Western Windows encoding are read automatically; for older Arabic, Persian or Cyrillic files saved in another encoding, convert them to UTF-8 before uploading.
Use the free first part as a test: check names, slang and the tone of a scene you know. Choose bilingual output if you are learning the language. Download VTT for web players and SRT for most desktop players and TVs.
What it costs
First part
Free
Shown on screen, no account. 1 job a day, or 3 a day with a free account.
Whole job
$5
One payment for every file in the job: up to 30 files and 5,000 lines. No subscription, never expires.
Unlimited
$29/month
Every tool on the site, with subtitle jobs of up to 15,000 lines. Or $180 a year.
Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT translate an SRT file?
For a short file, yes, and usually well. On a full movie or episode a chatbot tends to stop partway, merge or renumber lines, or change time codes, so the result no longer plays in sync. This tool translates the text line by line in blocks, checks that every line comes back, and copies the timings from your file.
How do I translate a whole season?
Upload all the episode files together as one job, up to 30 files and 5,000 subtitle lines, for one payment of $5. Each file comes back translated under its own name, and you download them together as one ZIP.
Will the timing stay in sync?
Yes, if your original file is in sync. Only the text is sent for translation; the start and end times, the order and the numbering are copied from your file, and lines are never merged or split.
Which languages can it translate into?
There are 41 target languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Swahili, Amharic, Somali and Tagalog. The source language is recognized from the text.
Is it free?
The first part of every job, up to 60 lines, is translated free and shown on screen, with no account. The whole job, with the files to download, is $5 paid once. Unlimited, at $29 a month or $180 a year, covers every tool on the site with subtitle jobs of up to 15,000 lines.
Does it handle right-to-left languages like Arabic and Persian?
Yes. For Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Hebrew, each line starts with an invisible right-to-left mark, so video players show punctuation at the correct end of the line. The file is saved as UTF-8 with a byte order mark, which helps older players and TVs recognize these scripts.
Can I make bilingual subtitles?
Yes. Choose bilingual output and each subtitle shows the original line with the translation underneath, at the same time code. This is useful for learning a language while you watch.
Which files can I upload?
SubRip (.srt) and WebVTT (.vtt) files, up to 5 MB each and 30 files per job, in UTF-8, UTF-16 or the common Western Windows encoding. You can download the result as SRT or VTT, whichever your player needs. .ass and .ssa files, image-based subtitles and video files are not supported.
Are my files private?
Only you can open your job. The subtitle text is sent to an AI model provider for the sole purpose of translating it, through routes that do not use your data for training. Jobs uploaded without an account are deleted after 7 days, and you can delete any job yourself at any time.
Updated October 20, 2026 · APPFACT STUDIO LTD