Instagram is making its video Stories and Reels more accessible with the launch of a new \u201ccaptions sticker\u201d that will allow users to watch without having the sound on. The addition will not only make it easier for users who are hard of hearing or deaf to engage with video content, it also offers a way for users to watch videos when they\u2019re somewhere they don\u2019t want to have their sound on \u2014 and either don\u2019t want to wear or don\u2019t have access to headphones or earbuds.<\/p>\n
To use the feature, creators will first record a new video using the Stories or Reels Camera in the Instagram app, or select a video to upload from their phone\u2019s gallery. Then, you\u2019ll open the sticker tray and look for the new \u201cCaptions\u201d sticker, which will convert your speech to text. You also can edit the style, position of the caption and the text and color so it matches your content. When you post, the captions will appear alongside your video for everyone to see.<\/p>\n
At launch, the feature is only available in English and in English-speaking countries, but Instagram plans to roll it out to other countries and languages soon, it says. It\u2019s also rolling out the captions sticker first to Stories and will then begin testing it in Reels, with a broader launch to follow.<\/p>\n
The captions sticker had been spotted<\/a> last year while in development, alongside other potential new additions, like a Collab sticker<\/a>, Link sticker,<\/a> Reshare sticker<\/a>\u00a0and others. Instagram parent Facebook also appears to have a captions sticker of its own<\/a> in development. The sticker then began testing earlier this spring<\/a> with some number of Instagram users.<\/p>\n The addition comes only weeks after TikTok announced its own captions feature<\/a>, which it calls auto captions. The two products are somewhat different, however. Auto captions automatically translate the speech from a TikTok video in either American English and Japanese, to start, but the text itself isn\u2019t customizable and can be turned on or off by the viewer from the app\u2019s share panel. It also hasn\u2019t yet been broadly adopted and many TikTok creators tend to still use captions they create themselves or via third-party apps.<\/p>\n Instagram notes it had previously launched support for captions across Threads and IGTV, but its expansion to Stories and Reels will make more of an impact, given that Instagram Stories alone is used by more than 500 million people<\/a> every day.<\/p>\n\n