Live Captions on Mac displays speech as text while you listen. Turn it on in System Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions, then choose Computer Audio for sound from your Mac or Microphone for nearby speech. These controls are documented in Apple’s macOS 26 guide.
Choose the source by where speech originates. If you need a written record afterward, plan that separately from the caption window.
Check whether your Mac supports Live Captions
Apple requires a Mac with Apple silicon. Availability also depends on language, country, and region. In Live Captions settings, the Language option selects the caption language. See Apple’s settings reference.
Use Apple’s feature availability list alongside the user guide for your installed macOS version. The availability page can describe a newer release than the one you use; its language list is not a compatibility promise for older systems. Use the guide’s version selector when following older instructions. An old tutorial describing English-only support should not settle whether your current setup is eligible.
Turn it on and choose the source
- Open System Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions and enable it.
- Allow the first-use language download to finish; this requires internet access.
- Open the Live Captions menu in the menu bar and select Computer Audio or Microphone. The microphone icon in the caption window also switches sources. Apple documents both controls.
Illustrative example: you are watching a lecture on the Mac while someone beside you speaks. Choose Computer Audio for the lecture, or Microphone for the person beside you. Do not assume this switch mixes both sources.
To turn Live Captions off, return to System Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions and switch it off. Stop Live Captions in the menu bar stops captioning but leaves the feature enabled, and Start Live Captions resumes it.
Make the caption window easier to follow
If the window disappears during silence, choose Keep Onscreen from the Live Captions menu. Pause stops captioning; Play resumes it. You can also resize and move the window. These are caption-window controls, not transcript-saving instructions.
In Live Captions settings, adjust the font, text size, text color, and background color. If captions are difficult to read against the content you are watching, start with a larger font and a clearer contrast between the text and its background. If only FaceTime is being captioned when you want other app audio, check the Live Captions in FaceTime setting: Apple describes it as restricting captions to FaceTime. See the settings reference.
For missing text, first separate three situations: an unavailable feature, a hidden window, and the wrong selected source. Changing font size cannot resolve eligibility; keeping the window visible cannot change which audio it receives. This distinction helps you choose the relevant setting instead of changing several at once.
Apple cautions that accuracy varies and that Live Captions should not be relied on in emergencies or other high-risk situations. Apple’s availability and reliability note applies even when the window is working.
Need editable text or a saved transcript?
For speaking your own words into a message or document, use Dictation. Apple’s Dictation instructions start with placing the insertion point where you want text to appear, and the Mac speech-to-text guide covers the settings to check when nothing appears.
For a record you can reuse after a conversation, choose a workflow with documented recording, transcript retention, and export controls. Apple’s Live Captions guide does not document a session export or automatic transcript history. That does not establish that copying is impossible; it means you should not plan your recordkeeping around an undocumented step.
For example, reading a lecture as it plays and collecting quotations for a report are different tasks. Live captions can serve the first purpose. For the second, obtain a saved transcript or recording you can revisit, and check the quotation against its source.
Last checked: September 14, 2026, against Apple’s macOS 26 guides. Examples are illustrative, not device-test results.
