How to Turn Off Live Captions on Windows
If you’re consuming media content on your Windows PC and see blocks of text on your screen, it means your PC has Live captions enabled.
Live Caption is a feature Microsoft introduced with the launch of Windows 11 and rolled out on devices running the build code-named 22557. The feature is designed to help Windows users understand any media content better, particularly users with hearing problems.
As handy as this feature is, you might find it redundant and distracting if you have no problem with audibility in the first place. Thankfully, you can disable it by following the simple steps you’ll find in this guide.
How to Disable Live Captions
You can disable Live Captions by simply entering the keyboard shortcut Windows key + Ctrl + L. You can use this shortcut to toggle Live Captions on and off. And if you ever feel the need to use the feature again, you can toggle it on by using the same shortcut.
Alternatively, if you can’t execute the command with your keyboard shortcut, you can disable Live Captions by delving into Windows accessibility settings. Use the steps below to navigate the Accessibility settings:
- Press Windows key + A to open the Quick Settings pane
- Navigate to and select Accessibility from the settings
- You’ll find a ton of options with toggle bars in front of them
- Navigate to Live Captions and toggle it off
You can also visit this section if you ever need to turn on Live Captions again.
How to Disable Via System Settings
You can dive deeper into Windows settings to disable Live Captions on your computer. To do this,
- Launch Settings by pressing the Windows key + I
- Once in the Settings window, navigate to and select Accessibility
- Under the Accessibility tab, select Captions
- You’ll find a toggle button right under the image in the next window
- Use the button to toggle Live Captions on or off.
Important Notes for Using Live Captions
If you ever need Live Captions again, it’s imperative to know that the feature doesn’t automatically display texts on your screen with your preferred language.
Live Captions will prompt you to download the speech model in your preferred language to work optimally. From my findings, Live Caption is only available in English (US) for now, but Microsoft is rolling out speech models for various other languages, including English (UK).
One more thing. You don’t have to suffer a hearing problem to find Live Captions handy. Some media files exist with poor audibility. In this case, Live Captions would help a lot. You might also be experiencing difficulty understanding media content wherein the speaker has an accent you’re not accustomed to. These are the scenarios wherein you’ll find the feature to be a pearl of great price.
Final Notes
It turns out that disabling Live Captions on your Windows PC is effortless, as demonstrated in the steps highlighted in this article. However, the feature is not completely useless even for someone with optimal aural capabilities. Thus, it would help if you toggled it on for some media content by following the steps discussed earlier.
Whenever I bring up the screen after being away from the P.C, for a short time, there is a pop-up gray banner that appears and covers the sign-in area. Placing the cursor on the banner to choose an option does nothing because the cursor slides underneath the banner. What is the origin of this annoying feature, and how does one eliminate this banner? I have tried the settings/accessibility menu with no luck.