How to turn off Live Captions on a Mac, pause it, or stop the window staying on screen

By Ryleigh Newman · Published October 11, 2026

If a caption window keeps appearing over your Mac's screen, that is Live Captions, an accessibility feature that writes out speech as it hears it. You turn it off in System Settings, Accessibility, Live Captions. If you only want it quiet for a while, you can pause it instead, and if the window will not go away when nothing is playing, one menu item is the cause.

Every step here comes from Apple's Mac User Guide, read on October 11, 2026.

This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

Turn Live Captions off

1. Choose Apple menu, System Settings.
2. Click Accessibility in the sidebar.
3. Click Live Captions. You may need to scroll down.
4. Turn Live Captions off.

That is the whole switch. Live Captions only exists on a Mac with Apple silicon, so if you do not see it in Accessibility, your Mac is not running it and the window you are seeing is something else, such as subtitles in a video app.

Pause it without turning it off

• In the window. Click the pause button in the Live Captions window. Click it again to restart captioning.
• In the menu bar. Click the Live Captions icon in the menu bar and choose Stop Live Captions. Choose Start Live Captions to resume.

Pausing keeps your settings and the window where you put it, which suits a meeting you want captioned later.

Stop the window from staying on screen

Apple says the Live Captions window is hidden automatically when no audio is detected. If yours stays up over a silent screen, Keep Onscreen is switched on. Click the Live Captions icon in the menu bar and choose Keep Onscreen again to clear it. The same menu has Restore Default Position if the window has ended up somewhere awkward, and you can drag any edge to resize it.

Turn it off with a shortcut

Apple's guide says you can use Accessibility Shortcuts to switch Live Captions on or off quickly: press Option Command F5, or press Touch ID three times, and pick it from the panel. There are also keyboard shortcuts for Live Captions actions, which you can see and change in System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Accessibility. The accessibility shortcuts page explains the panel. If Live Captions keeps turning on by surprise, that panel or one of those shortcuts is the likely reason.

If it only happens in FaceTime

By default Live Captions transcribes audio from every app. Apple notes it can also be used only in FaceTime, with its own control inside a FaceTime call. If captions appear only during calls, look there first.

What Live Captions is, in case you want it back

It writes out spoken audio in real time, from any app or from the room around you through the microphone, and Apple says the audio is processed on the device. It is not dictation: it shows words in its own window and does not type them into your documents. The Live Captions guide covers turning it on, captioning the room, and Type to Speak. For typing by voice into any app, the Mac dictation guide is the place to start.

This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

The short version

• Off. System Settings, Accessibility, Live Captions.
• Pause. The pause button in the window, or Stop Live Captions in the menu bar.
• Window will not hide. Turn off Keep Onscreen in the menu bar.
• Keeps coming back. Check Accessibility Shortcuts, Option Command F5.
• Not there at all. Intel Macs do not have Live Captions.

If Apple moves these settings, open an issue on GitHub and I will update this page. Every one gets read.

This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Related

• Live Captions on a Mac: the languages Apple lists, and what it does about translation
• Live Captions on a Mac: real-time captions for calls, videos and the room around you
• Mac accessibility shortcuts: every key combination in one place
• Mac accessibility features for hands and mobility, and how to write with each one
• How to turn off dictation on a Mac, and stop it starting by accident
• The orange dot on a Mac: how to see what is using the microphone, and turn it off
• How to use dictation on a Mac: turn it on, talk, and stop
• How to make a Mac read text aloud
• Dictation or Voice Control on a Mac: which one you need

Sources

• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/get-captions-of-spoken-and-computer-audio-mchldd11f4fd/mac (checked 2026-10-11)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/quickly-turn-accessibility-features-on-or-off-mchlp2975/mac (checked 2026-10-11)
• https://github.com/ryleighnewman/YapToText (checked 2026-10-11)
• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yaptotext/id6786382289 (checked 2026-10-11)

Questions