Begin with a video you can use
Use your own public TikTok video or content you have permission to process. Copy its video/share link, not a profile or search page. The platform's own download option may be enough when you only need the file. For a subtitle workflow, open our TikTok downloader. Private, deleted or restricted sources can fail; uploading your own MP4 is the fallback.
1. Import once and download the source
Paste the link and select Get video. Keep the tab open while the source is downloaded and normalized. When ready, Download source video returns an MP4. This task does not automatically queue speech recognition. A normalized file may differ from the original encoding, and any visible source watermark remains.
2. Continue with subtitles on the same project
Select Continue with subtitles rather than importing the same link again. When the source provides a usable original-language caption track, the project can reuse it. Inspect Source subtitles to see the available track and its origin. A translated source track is labelled separately; it is not a translation generated by NewSubtitles.
3. Generate only when you need a new draft
If you need recognition from the audio, select the spoken language and Generate. Check quiet phrases, names and numbers against playback. If a source caption lookup failed, the editor keeps that failure distinct from a confirmed absence of subtitles: retry or explicitly generate. Do not assume an unavailable track means the video contains no captions.
4. Correct, style and export
Edit the words and timing, then compare the beginning and ending of the clip. Choose a caption style and preview long lines at phone size. Export full video for a new MP4 with captions burned in. Free supports up to 10-minute videos and watermarked 720p output; Pro and Max include watermark-free HD exports and subtitle-file downloads. Their watermark-free export does not remove marks already in the source.
When the imported video already has words in the picture
Burned-in text is part of the video pixels, not an editable caption track. Reusing or generating subtitles can add a second layer of text; it cannot recover or remove that original layer. Prefer a clean source when available, and inspect the result before posting. For timing errors, use the sync guide rather than importing repeatedly.