So you want to import subtitles into your Youtube video

Ok, this is the situation: you have a Youtube video in English and you want to import (that is, use) the subtitles made by someone else, let’s say in Spanish. This is possible, and Youtube allows for easy importing these subtitles into any of your videos.

This is how you do it:

First off, the person providing the subtitles needs to send you a file containing those. Let’s say this file’s name is my subtitles.srt. As a sidenote, srt is a very common format for subtitles of all kinds.

Now it’s time to go to Youtube.

Once you are logged in into your account, open Youtube Studio.

Go to the Subtitles menu.

Click on the title of the video you want to import the subtitles into.

Add a language to the video (by clicking on Add language).

Select Spanish.

Notice a new line appears for Spanish. On that line, click on Add under the Subtitles column.

Click on Upload file.

Make sure the file type selected is with timing and click on continue.

Now it’s time to find and open the subtitles file you had at the begining. That file is my subtitles.srt in this example.

At this point, you just need to publish the subtitles.

You can see all is in order: the subtitles in Spanish appear as published.

At this point, the subtitles in Spanish will be available for this video.

Bonus track: localizing video title & description

There is something else you can do to improve the localization of your video: you can translate the video title and description too. Spanish-speaking Youtube users will seamlessly see those in their language.

You just need to click on add under the title & description column, in the Spanish row.

If you know how to translate, or you have been provided with the translated title and/or description, fill in the fields and then click on publish.

Everything is ok: the title and description appear as published

That would be pretty much about it.