Live Captions / Windows 11 Live Captions vs Live Captions & Transcribe
Windows 11 Live Captions vs Live Captions & Transcribe
Updated October 27, 2026
If you have Windows 11 and only need to read captions in the moment, the free Live Captions built into Windows 11 is enough. Choose Live Captions & Transcribe if you need to keep what was said (a searchable history with TXT/SRT export), see who is speaking (a color for each speaker), use Windows 10, or caption speech in any of 60 languages with automatic detection.
Both show real-time captions for the sound on your PC on top of other apps, and in both cases the other people in a call see nothing. The differences are in what happens around the captions: where they work, what you can do with the text afterwards, and how the speech is processed.
Side-by-side comparison
| Windows 11 Live Captions (built in) | Live Captions & Transcribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Windows version | Windows 11, version 22H2 or later | Windows 10 and Windows 11 (x64) |
| Price | Free, part of Windows | Free to try without account or card, then minute packs or a monthly/yearly subscription |
| What it listens to | Sound on the PC, with an option to include the microphone | Computer sound or the microphone, your choice |
| Languages | A limited set that depends on your Windows version | 60 speech languages, detected automatically |
| Who said what | No speaker separation | Each speaker in their own color, on a new line |
| Transcript history | No, captions are not saved | Saved on your PC: search, rename speakers, copy |
| Export | No | TXT and SRT |
| Text and look | Windows caption styles | Text up to 64 pt; light, dark and high-contrast styles |
| Window | Docked at the top or bottom of the screen, or floating | Floating window that stays on top, with click-through |
| Speech processing | On the device | Cloud speech service while captions run; audio not recorded; needs internet |
| Translation | Only on Copilot+ PCs | No, captions only (translation is in the sister app Live Subtitles) |
When the built-in Windows 11 Live Captions is enough
- You are on Windows 11 and want captions now and then, for a video or a short call.
- The people you listen to speak a language the built-in feature supports on your PC.
- You don't need to read back what was said after the call or video ends.
- You want speech to be processed on the device and to work without internet.
- You have a Copilot+ PC and want captions translated, which the built-in feature offers on those PCs.
To try it, press Windows key + Ctrl + L, or open Settings → Accessibility → Captions and turn on Live captions. The first time, Windows downloads the speech files it needs.
When you need Live Captions & Transcribe
You want to keep a transcript
The built-in captions disappear as they scroll away. Live Captions & Transcribe saves every session in a history on your PC. You can search it by word, copy a quote into an email, or export it to TXT for notes or SRT for subtitles. That matters for lectures, long meetings, interviews and webinars that you will need to go back to.
You need to know who said what
In a meeting with several people, a single stream of text gets confusing fast. Live Captions & Transcribe shows each speaker in their own color and starts a new line when the speaker changes. In the history you can rename "Speaker 1" and "Speaker 2" to real names.
Your PC runs Windows 10
The built-in Live Captions does not exist on Windows 10. Live Captions & Transcribe runs on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, so you can use the same app on an older office PC and a new laptop. More options are in our guide to live captions on Windows 10.
The language isn't covered, or changes during the call
Live Captions & Transcribe recognizes 60 speech languages and detects the language by itself, so you don't have to switch it before each call. This helps with international meetings, foreign videos without subtitles, and fast or accented speech. It shows captions in the spoken language; it does not translate.
You want very large, high-contrast text
Text can go up to 64 pt, with light, dark and high-contrast styles. The window stays on top, and in click-through mode your clicks pass through it to the app underneath. This is useful on a big screen across the room, or for anyone who is hard of hearing or finds small text tiring.
How to start with Live Captions & Transcribe
- Install Live Captions & Transcribe from the Microsoft Store. No account or card is needed to try it.
- Open it and choose what to listen to: computer sound for Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, WhatsApp, Discord, YouTube, Netflix and lectures, or the microphone for people in the room.
- Press Start. Captions appear about one second after the words are spoken.
- After the session, open the history to search, rename speakers, copy or export to TXT or SRT.
If you keep both, turn off the built-in captions while the app is running (Windows key + Ctrl + L again) so you don't read two caption layers at once.
Privacy: how the two differ
Windows 11 Live Captions processes speech on the device. Live Captions & Transcribe uses a cloud speech recognition service: while captions are running, the audio is sent there to be turned into text, so it needs an internet connection. The audio is not recorded, and transcripts are saved only on your PC, where you can delete them. Neither tool installs anything into Zoom or Teams, and with neither does a bot join your meeting. See the privacy policy for details.
Try Live Captions & Transcribe free on Windows 10 or 11. No account, no card.
Get it from Microsoft Store