Guide
Live captions on Mac screen recordings
Live captions turn speech into an on-screen overlay while you teach or demo. In FrameCast, captions use Speech Recognition on your Mac — they are not a cloud captioning seat.
Pair captions with a shaped camera and a recording frame when students or teammates need to follow both your face and the UI.
Turn captions on
Grant Speech Recognition when macOS asks (System Settings → Privacy & Security). The studio lists the same permission and can open the matching pane.
Microphone access is required so speech can be recognized. System audio alone does not feed captions — your voice needs the mic path.
When captions help most
- Tutorials and lessons where viewers watch muted or in noisy spaces
- Product demos for international teammates who prefer reading along
- Accessibility for hard-of-hearing viewers without a separate captioning pass
Keep the take clean
Speak at a steady pace near the mic. Captions reflect what Speech Recognition hears — accents, jargon, and crosstalk can still slip.
If you later generate a paid voice-over from a transcript segment, that is a separate credit flow. Captions themselves stay local.
Takeaways
- • Captions run on-device via macOS Speech Recognition.
- • Microphone permission is required; system audio alone is not enough.
- • Best for teaching and demos — not a guarantee of perfect jargon.
Related guides
Related comparisons
All guides · Comparisons · Support · FrameCast home
Try the Mac studio free
macOS 26.5 or later. Optional voice credits only when you generate a voice-over.