There are two completely different kinds of "live captions app" for the Mac, and picking the right one depends on who the captions are for. If they're for you — following a meeting, a lecture or a video — use Apple's built-in Live Captions or an app like NotchLive. If they're for your audience — captions on a live stream, webinar or show that viewers watch — you need a caption overlay that renders into your streaming software, which is a different category of tool. Most disappointment with caption apps comes from buying one kind when you needed the other.
The two categories (this is the bit everyone misses)
Captions for you sit on your own screen. They exist so the person at the Mac can read what's being said — accessibility, noisy rooms, following a fast talker, translating a foreign-language call. Nobody else ever sees them. Apple Live Captions, NotchLive and most "live captions Mac" search results are this.
Captions for your audience are a broadcast graphic. They're rendered into your video before it goes out, so every viewer on every platform sees them — styled, positioned, and ideally telling speakers apart. This is what you need for a live show, a webinar, a podcast recording with video, or any stream where a chunk of the audience watches muted. I built Live Show Captions because this category barely existed on the Mac.
The apps, honestly compared
Apple Live Captions (built into macOS) — free
Baked into macOS, free, on-device, one click in Control Centre. Captions any system audio into a plain floating window. If you're hard of hearing or just want to follow a call, start here — it costs nothing.
The limits: English-focused, one grey style, no speaker identification, and the caption window exists only on your screen — it can't appear on a stream (screen-sharing the caption window into a scene is technically possible and looks exactly like what it is).
NotchLive — for meetings, translation and personal transcripts
A well-made indie app that shows on-device Whisper captions in (or below) your MacBook's notch. It captions any app's audio, translates in real time using Apple's translation, and keeps a searchable, exportable transcript. Free for captions; a one-time payment adds translation and transcript export. If you want captions for yourself — following Zoom calls, translating a meeting, keeping private transcripts of interviews — it's a genuinely good choice and I'd happily point you at it.
The limits: same category boundary as Apple's — the captions live on your screen, for you. There's no overlay output, no styling for broadcast, and no telling speakers apart. It cannot put captions on your live show.
MacWhisper — transcription after the fact
The Mac transcription workbench. Drop in a recording, get an excellent transcript. It's for producing text from media, not for putting live text on media — different job entirely. Great for show notes on the replay; irrelevant during the live broadcast.
Web Captioner and browser caption tools — free, but generic
Browser-based speech-to-text you can window-capture into a scene. It does technically get captions onto a stream, which is why it shows up in every "how to caption a stream" tutorial. In practice: one colour for everyone, browser-tab fragility mid-show, fiddly styling, and no idea who's speaking.
Live Show Captions — captions for your audience
My app, so judge accordingly — but this is the one built for the audience-facing job. It transcribes on your Mac (nothing goes to the cloud) and serves a transparent overlay you drop into Ecamm Live, OBS, Meld or Restream as a browser source. Every speaker gets their own colour, name and side of the screen, switched automatically by voice recognition — record a few seconds of each voice once and the captions follow the conversation on their own. Eight caption styles, trigger words that fire graphics, a Stream Deck plugin, and it captures remote guests straight out of Zoom, Ecamm or Chrome. It's $9.99 a month with a 7-day free trial, priced for people whose show is part of how they make a living.
The limits: it's Apple Silicon only, it's a subscription not a one-off, and if you just want to read captions for yourself in a meeting, it's the wrong tool — use Apple's or NotchLive.
So which do you need?
- Follow calls, lectures or videos yourself, free → Apple Live Captions.
- Personal captions with translation and saved transcripts → NotchLive.
- Transcribe recordings after the fact → MacWhisper.
- Captions your viewers see on a live show, styled and colour-coded by speaker → Live Show Captions.
Frequently asked
Can Apple Live Captions or NotchLive put captions on my live stream?
No. Both draw captions on your own screen for you to read — there's no overlay output for streaming software. The only ways to get their text onto a stream are screen-capture workarounds, which look rough and break easily. Audience-facing captions need an app that outputs a browser-source overlay.
What's the difference between live captions and a caption overlay?
Live captions are text on your screen; a caption overlay is a transparent graphics layer rendered into your outgoing video, so every viewer on every platform sees it as part of the show. Same speech recognition underneath, completely different destination.
Do any of these send my audio to the cloud?
None of the apps above do — Apple Live Captions, NotchLive, MacWhisper and Live Show Captions all transcribe on-device. Cloud captioning services exist (and charge by the minute), but on a Mac you don't need them for live work.
Which option identifies who's speaking?
Of the tools here, only Live Show Captions does live speaker identification — it recognises each enrolled voice and gives every speaker their own caption colour, name and side of the screen, switching automatically mid-conversation.
What's the best free way to caption a live stream?
Your platform's built-in auto-captions (YouTube can generate them live) are free and better than nothing — but they only exist on that one platform, in one plain style, with no speaker separation. If you multistream or care how the show looks, that's where a dedicated overlay earns its keep.
Captions "for you" and captions "for your audience" are different products that happen to share a name. Apple's free captions and NotchLive are excellent at the first job. If your captions need to be part of the show — branded, colour-coded, on every platform you stream to — that's the job I built mine for.
Native macOS, transparent overlay for Ecamm, OBS and Restream, a colour for every speaker, free for 7 days:
Get Live Show Captions →