How to add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve

How to add subtitles in DaVinci Resolve

In DaVinci Resolve, import the .srt with File > Import > Subtitle on the Edit page, or by right-clicking in the Media Pool and choosing Import Subtitle. The subtitle arrives as a clip in the Media Pool; you then put it on a subtitle track.

Automatic transcription in DaVinci Resolve requires Studio, the paid edition. The free edition imports, edits, styles and burns in subtitles perfectly well, it just cannot generate them from audio. So the free-edition route is to produce an SRT elsewhere and import it here.

SnailText generates that SRT from your footage on your own machine, which keeps the whole workflow local and costs nothing per minute.

Import an SRT into DaVinci Resolve, step by step

Before you start: Generate the SRT. In SnailText, open Transcribe files, set the output to SRT, and run it. For a multi-cam or long-form project, drop the whole folder in at once - batch transcription writes one .srt per file in a single pass.

1. Open your timeline on the Edit page in Resolve.
2. Import the file. On the Edit page choose File > Import > Subtitle, or right-click in the Media Pool and choose Import Subtitle. Select the .srt.
3. Place it on the timeline. Importing adds the subtitle to the Media Pool, it does not put it on the timeline by itself. Drag the subtitle clip onto a subtitle track, or right-click it and choose Insert Selected Subtitles to Timeline Using Timecode, which splits it into individual cues aligned to the timeline timecode.
4. Style the cues in the Inspector with the subtitle track selected. Font, size, colour, position, background and stroke apply to the whole track, so you set them once.
5. To burn the subtitles into the picture, go to the Deliver page, open the Subtitle Settings section and enable Export Subtitle, then choose Burn into video. To ship a sidecar instead, pick As a separate file and set the format to SRT.

Menu paths written against DaVinci Resolve 19/20 documentation and release notes (checked 2026-10-01). DaVinci Resolve is Mac and Windows.

The free edition and the Studio edition

The free edition of DaVinci Resolve imports, edits, styles, burns in and exports subtitles. What it does not have is Create Subtitles from Audio, the automatic transcription feature introduced in Resolve 18.5, which is Studio only. If you are on free and hunting for that menu item, it is not hidden, it is not there.

Importing an externally generated SRT closes that gap: once the cues are on a subtitle track they behave like any other subtitle track, with the same editing, the same Inspector styling and the same delivery options.

If you do have Studio, its built-in transcription is convenient and worth using. The local route is still useful there for two reasons: it runs on a machine without Resolve open, and you can drop a whole folder in at once and get one .srt per file.

Cue shape decides whether the imported track reads well. SnailText wraps lines at 42 characters and splits any cue longer than 6 seconds, so the subtitles arrive in the shape a track is normally cut to rather than as long blocks you resplit cue by cue in the Inspector.

What importing an SRT into DaVinci Resolve will not do

• It will not produce word-level karaoke captions. SnailText writes phrase-level cues, one per spoken phrase, so per-word highlighting is outside what the file can express.
• It will not extract subtitles already embedded in a video. The audio is transcribed afresh; an existing subtitle track is not read out of the container.
• It will not convert between subtitle formats. Resolve wants SRT and that is what to generate; if you already hold a VTT, convert it with the browser converter rather than re-transcribing.