LiveCaptionIt / Live captions for lectures
Live captions for any lecture or class.
Coursera, edX, Udemy, Khan Academy, YouTube lectures, university LMS — caption any lecture playing in your browser. The floating window stays visible while you take notes. Transcripts downloadable as .txt / .vtt / .srt. Free, no signup, audio never uploads.
Free · no signup · audio processed locally · transcript exports
Why students use it
- ▸ Read while taking notes — caption window floats above Notion / Obsidian / Notes app. No more pausing the video, scrolling back, transcribing manually.
- ▸ Download the transcript as .txt for study notes or .vtt/.srt to re-upload as subtitles.
- ▸ 99-language support — international courses in any language are captioned in the source language.
- ▸ Accessibility — for hearing-impaired students or English-as-second-language learners, live captions remove a major barrier to MOOCs and remote courses.
- ▸ Free + zero signup — no student license needed, no email, no monthly bill.
Step-by-step
- 1
Open the lecture / class in a browser tab
Coursera, edX, Udemy, Khan Academy, university LMS portals, YouTube lectures — anything that plays in Chrome.
- 2
Open LiveCaptionIt in another tab
Visit livecaptionit.com and click "Start captions".
- 3
Share the lecture tab + tick 'Share tab audio'
Pick the lecture tab in the browser picker. Tick 'Share tab audio'.
- 4
Read captions while taking notes
Open your note-taking app (Notion, Obsidian, Notes). The caption window floats above whatever app you switch to — read captions while typing notes in the same screen.
Common questions
Can I download the transcript after the lecture ends?
Yes. When you click Stop, three download buttons appear — .txt (plain text), .vtt (subtitle format), .srt (universal subtitle format). Use .txt for study notes, .srt or .vtt to re-upload as subtitles on a video. The last 20 transcripts are also auto-saved to your browser for re-download.
Will captions work on recorded lectures with bad audio quality?
Whisper is robust to background noise and accent, but very low-quality audio (compressed re-recordings, distant microphone, echo) reduces accuracy. The Small (244 MB) or Large turbo (537 MB) model tiers handle difficult audio significantly better than Base. The Custom Vocabulary panel also helps if the lecturer uses technical jargon or proper nouns.
Can I caption a lecture in a non-English language?
Yes — Whisper's multilingual mode supports 99 languages and LiveCaptionIt uses it automatically. Captions appear in the source language. Useful for international students attending lectures in their second language and wanting to read along, or for native speakers studying in a foreign-language course.
Does this work with Coursera, edX, or my university LMS?
Yes — any video that plays in a Chrome tab can be captioned. Coursera, edX, Udemy, Khan Academy, university LMS portals (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle), and YouTube all stream video+audio through standard browser playback. LiveCaptionIt captures the tab audio and captions it in a floating window above your notes app.
Is the floating window distracting?
It's resizable and draggable. Make it small and tuck it in a corner; or make it edge-to-edge wide for a "subtitle bar" look. Caption Style preferences let you adjust font size, weight, position (top/middle/bottom), and you can switch between sepia / high-contrast / terminal themes. The window also supports opacity adjustment for a less-intrusive overlay.
Caption your next lecture
Floating window stays on top while you take notes. Audio stays on your device. Transcript downloadable when done.
Open LiveCaptionIt →