Live captions is available in Windows 11, version 22H2 and later. The latest live captions update includes support for multiple languages and changes to some of the menu items. If you don’t have this update yet, note that new Windows 11 features are released gradually.
For more information on the new features in Windows 11, version 22H2, and how to get the update, see What's new in recent Windows updates. Not sure which version of Windows you have? See: Find Windows version.
What languages does live captions support?
Live captions supports speech recognition in:
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Chinese (Simplified, China)
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Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR)
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Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
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Danish
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English (Australia)
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English (Canada)
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English (India)
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English (Ireland)
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English (New Zealand)
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English (United Kingdom)
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English (United States)
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French (Canada)
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French (France)
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German (Germany)
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Italian (Italy)
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Japanese
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Korean
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Portuguese (Brazil)
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Portuguese (Portugal)
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Spanish (Mexico)
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Spanish (Spain)
What kind of audio can be captioned?
Only speech detected in audio will be captioned. Audible events such as applause or music will not be detected. Lyrics sung in music will not be reliably detected.
How does live captions process and use my data?
All processing of audio and generation of captions from detected voice data occurs on-device. Audio, voice data, and captions never leave your device and are not shared to the cloud or with Microsoft. For more information, review the Microsoft privacy statement.
I use a headset in meetings but live captions isn’t captioning the audio, why is that?
Live captions pays attention to the default sound output device configured in Settings > System > Sound. You might need to change your default device for audio to be picked up by live captions.
Why doesn’t live captions remember my microphone setting preference?
The microphone is always turned off by default when live captions starts up, so that only the audio you intend will be captioned.
How do I adjust the privacy settings for live captions' use of my microphone?
Navigate to Settings > Privacy & security > Microphone > Let apps access your microphone > Let desktop apps access your microphone.
What happens when microphone audio is being captured at the same time as sound audio? Captions for which audio will be shown?
Sound audio will be prioritized over microphone audio. For example, if you are in a virtual meeting where a remote meeting participant is speaking and you speak over each other, the captions for the remote meeting participant will be shown instead of your captions.
I’m getting a download error when I first run live captions, how do I resolve this?
Refer to Troubleshooting live captions or voice access setup issues.
I‘m no longer using live captions, how do I remove the language files that were downloaded and reclaim storage space?
Navigate to Settings > Apps > Installed apps, and then search for Speech Pack. You get a list of all installed language files. Select Uninstall from the menu for the language file you want to uninstall.
