YouTube videos missing captions
All video content—whether hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, Kaltura, or any other platform—must include human-curated, accessible captions.

All linked and embedded videos must include human-curated captions. Automatically generated captions are not sufficient on their own, as they are often inaccurate and may fail to identify multiple speakers.

If you are the video's owner, check out PopeTech's complete guide for adding captions to YouTube videos.

For silent videos

If the video has no audio track, add a caption at the very beginning stating, [This video has no audio]. 

This reassures deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers that they aren't missing any information or dealing with a broken caption file.

For music-only videos

If the video features background music but no dialogue, provide a descriptive caption right away. For example: [This video has no dialogue. Upbeat instrumental music plays]. 

This gives users full context of the video's mood without leaving them wondering if someone is speaking.

Third-party videos

If you are not the video's owner, you have a few options:

  1. Contact the video owner and request that they add accessible captions.
  2. Choose an alternative video that already includes accurate captions.
  3. Remove the video from your webpage if accessible captions are not available.
  4. Provide a complete and accurate text transcript directly on the webpage, positioned immediately below the embedded video.

Additional accessibility considerations

For blind and low-vision users

If your video contains important visual information that isn't spoken aloud (such as on-screen text, charts, or visual demonstrations), you must provide a way for blind users to access that information. You can do this by:

  • Choosing videos with an Audio Description track (a voiceover that describes the visual action).
  • Providing a comprehensive text transcript below the video that includes both the spoken dialogue and descriptions of the critical visual events.

Additional information

Audio Description: If Your Eyes Could Speak
A webinar about audio descriptions

Images, Audio, and Video webinars from the University's Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA)

Related resources