What's the difference between SRT and VTT?

They're close cousins. Both are plain text with numbered or timed cues. VTT (WebVTT) starts with a WEBVTT header and uses a dot before the milliseconds, while SRT uses a comma. Most video editors and YouTube accept SRT, which is why it's the safest choice.

Can I make SRT subtitles for free on iPhone?

You can type one by hand for free in any text app, using the Voice Memos transcript as your script, though it's slow. In Linen, copying text and exporting TXT are free, and SRT export is part of Linen Pro, which has a 3-day free trial.

Will the subtitles be burned into my video?

No. An SRT is a separate file that sits next to the video. YouTube shows it as captions viewers can turn on or off. If you want the words baked into the picture, editors like Final Cut Pro or CapCut can do that when you export the video.

Why are my subtitles out of sync?

Usually because the video was trimmed after the SRT was made. If you cut 5 seconds from the start, every subtitle is now 5 seconds late. Make the SRT from the final edit, or shift the captions in your editor.

How long should each subtitle line be?

A common guideline is no more than 2 lines of about 42 characters each, so viewers can read a cue at a glance. Linen keeps every cue within that limit.

How to make SRT subtitles from a recording on iPhone

We built Linen because getting the words out of your own recording shouldn’t mean paying by the minute or uploading private audio to a server. Subtitles are a big part of that. Plenty of videos get watched with the sound off, and captions make your video easier to follow for everyone. We wanted making them to happen on the phone, privately, with no minutes to buy.

Here’s what an SRT file actually is, where to use one, and how to make one on your iPhone.

What an SRT file is

SRT (short for SubRip) is the most widely used subtitle format. It’s just a plain text file with the extension .srt. Inside, your subtitles are split into small blocks called cues. Each cue has four parts:

A number, counting up from 1.
A start and end time, written as hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds, with an arrow between them.
The text, one or two short lines.
A blank line to separate it from the next cue.

Here’s a tiny example:

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,400
Hi, welcome back to the channel.

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,900
Today I'm showing you how
to make subtitles on an iPhone.

Note the comma before the milliseconds, not a dot. That small detail trips up hand-made files more than anything else.

Because it’s plain text, you can open an SRT in any text editor to fix a typo. Save it as plain text with UTF-8 encoding so accents and non-Latin characters display properly.

Where you can use an SRT file

YouTube. In YouTube Studio, open your video’s Subtitles section and upload the file with timing. YouTube lists SubRip (.srt) among its supported caption formats.
Final Cut Pro. Choose File, then Import, then Captions, and pick your SRT. The captions land in their own lane on the timeline.
Premiere Pro. Import the SRT and add it to your sequence as captions.
CapCut. The desktop and web editors can import an SRT file into a project’s captions.
DaVinci Resolve, video players and many other tools also read SRT files.

The upshot: make it once, use it almost anywhere.

The built-in way: type it by hand

Apple’s apps are great at transcripts. On iPhone 12 or later with iOS 18 or newer, Voice Memos and Notes both turn speech into text in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. But neither offers an SRT export in the steps Apple documents. Their options are viewing or copying the transcript.

So the free route is to build the file yourself:

1. Get the transcript. In Voice Memos, tap the recording, tap the More button, then Copy Transcript.

2. Paste it into a text app. Any plain text editor works.

3. Split it into cues. Break the text into short chunks of one or two lines.

4. Add the timings. Play the recording, note when each chunk starts and ends, and type the times in the format above.

5. Number the cues and save as .srt. Make sure the file ends in .srt, not .srt.txt.

This is fine for a 30 second clip. For anything longer, the timing step gets slow fast.

The quick way: export SRT from Linen

Linen makes the timings for you. It transcribes on your iPhone with Apple’s on-device speech engine (SpeechAnalyzer, new in iOS 26), so it needs iOS 26. Your audio is never uploaded, and once a language is downloaded it works in airplane mode.

1. Bring in your recording. Record in Linen, share a memo from Voice Memos, pick an audio file from Files, or choose a video from Photos. For a video, Linen pulls the audio out for you.

2. Let it transcribe. It’s usually well under a minute on a recent iPhone. You’ll see paragraphs, each with a timestamp.

3. Check it by ear. Tap any paragraph to play from there. The playing paragraph is highlighted, and you can listen at 1x, 1.5x or 2x or skip 10 seconds. Use find to jump to a word.

4. Export SRT. Choose SRT from the export options (a Linen Pro feature). Each cue is at most 2 lines of 42 characters, a length that’s easy to read on a phone or a TV.

5. Send it where it’s going. Get the file to wherever you edit, then upload it to YouTube or import it into your editor.

If you just want the words, copying the text and exporting TXT are free.

Tips for subtitles people can actually read

Make the SRT from your final cut. Trimming the video afterwards shifts every timing.
Proofread names. Open the SRT in a text editor and fix any names or terms the speech engine misheard. Keep the numbers and times exactly as they are.
Check the language. Upload the file with the language spoken in the video, so platforms label it correctly.
Watch it once. Play the video with captions on before you publish. It’s the fastest way to catch a typo.

What it costs

Typing an SRT by hand is free. Linen is free for your first 3 transcripts, up to 5 minutes each, no card needed. SRT export comes with Linen Pro: unlimited transcripts of any length for $29.99 a year with a 3-day free trial, or $4.99 a week.

Starting from a video in your camera roll? See how to get a transcript from a video on your iPhone. For everyday memos, read how to transcribe a voice memo on iPhone.