Loom's own help center says closed captions are not included in the file you download. The MP4 that lands in your Downloads folder is the picture and the audio — the captions you were watching in the Loom player live on Loom's side, not inside the file.
So nothing is broken and there is no export checkbox you missed. Once you know that, the question changes from "why did the captions disappear" to "how do I get them into a file I can send somewhere else."
What Loom actually leaves out of the download
Loom's "Download your Loom video" page answers this in its FAQ, and the wording is worth reading closely:
"While all video trims will be retained in the mp4-downloaded format, it's important to note that other Loom features, including CTAs, Filler Word + Silence removal, Chapters, and Closed Captions, will not be included in the downloaded file."
Two things follow from that one sentence. Your trims do survive — the download reflects the edited timeline, not the raw take. Closed captions, chapters and CTAs do not. They are player features, and the player is what you leave behind when you download.
There is a related one on audio. Loom's background-noise page says: "No, if you select a video to have reduced background noise, this will be reflected in the web player but downloaded Loom videos will include the original audio." Same pattern — a post-processing effect that exists in playback, not in the file.
One caveat so you are not surprised: Loom's filler-word page takes a different line on its own feature, saying "If you download your video, the removal will remain intact," while the download page (quoted above) lists Filler Word + Silence removal among the things that are not included. Those are two different Loom pages saying two different things; check the current behaviour in the official documentation rather than assuming either one.
Why you cannot just feed a subtitle file back to Loom
The obvious workaround — export the captions, fix them, re-attach them — is closed off. Loom's page on regenerating transcripts states it in one line:
"Users can't upload external subtitle files to Loom."
Put that next to the download behaviour and the practical conclusion is unavoidable: if you want captions to travel with the video to a platform, a client, or an offline player, the captions have to be part of the picture. Downloading the SRT and burning it into the frames is the route that works with what Loom documents.
The fastest fix: pull the SRT, then burn it in
Step 1 — download the captions as SRT. Loom's transcription and closed captions page describes the route: select the "..." above your video, then Download captions. Loom describes this as "an SRT file of your captions."
Step 2 — correct the transcript first if it needs it. Same page: "Captions are based on your video's transcript, so correcting the transcript will automatically correct the captions." Fixing typos before you download the SRT saves you doing it twice.
Step 3 — download the MP4 from the same video, using the normal download option.
Step 4 — burn the SRT into the MP4. This is the step Loom does not do for you.
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
That runs inside your browser tab — the video is read from disk, rendered locally, and handed back, so a recording that was private in Loom does not get uploaded to somebody else's server on the way out. The standalone burn subtitles into video tool does the same job if you arrive at it later with the two files already in hand.
Other causes, in rough order of likelihood
You are not allowed to download captions. This is the most common dead end, and it is a permissions rule, not a bug. Loom's captions page: "Downloadable captions are only available to creators and admins on a Business/Business + AI plan, and members and admins on an Enterprise plan." The video download itself has its own rule — Loom states that "The download feature is only available on Business, Business+ AI, or Enterprise plans," and adds that "Creator Lite and Viewer roles don't have download permissions on any plan."
Your workspace admin turned downloads off. Loom's page on disabling downloads notes that once the setting is on, "users in your workspace will no longer have the ability to download videos and transcripts." Note the and transcripts — this switch takes the SRT with it, so the burn-in route is closed until an admin changes it.
The video has no transcript to export. Loom lists the usual reasons: "the video length, a delayed processing time or the video was recorded before the transcript feature launched," and its recommended fix is blunt — "we recommend downloading the video and re-uploading it." A separate page adds a language condition: "Unsupported languages (for example, Hebrew) will fail to produce transcripts, disabling all AI functionality."
Transcription is switched off on that video. Loom: "If you've disabled transcription from your video settings, your viewer will not see the option to watch your Loom with closed captions." No transcript in the player means no SRT to download.
The download itself is blocked for a different reason. Loom's FAQ lists three: videos with Variables cannot be downloaded, only the meeting organizer can download a Loom meeting recording, and "you won't be able to download Loom videos over 20GB." Loom's own conversion for that last one is "Approx. 3 hours recorded in 4K," and it suggests contacting support if you need a larger download.
How to tell it worked
Open the exported file in any player and scrub to a spot where someone is talking. Burned-in subtitles are pixels, so they appear with no CC button involved and no subtitle track to select — that is exactly what makes them survive a re-upload to a platform that ignores sidecar files.
If the text shows up only when you enable captions in the player, you attached the SRT as a track rather than rendering it into the frames, and the next platform you upload to may drop it again.
FAQ
Why does my downloaded Loom video have no subtitles? Because Loom does not put them in the file. Its download page lists Closed Captions among the features that "will not be included in the downloaded file," alongside CTAs and Chapters. Trims are the thing that does carry over.
Can I upload my own SRT file to Loom? No. Loom states that "Users can't upload external subtitle files to Loom." That is why burning the captions into the video is the practical route rather than re-attaching them.
What caption format does Loom export? Loom's captions page describes downloading an SRT file of your captions. If your destination expects WebVTT, convert after the export with SRT to VTT rather than looking for a second option inside Loom.
Who is allowed to download captions from a Loom video? Per Loom's captions page, creators and admins on a Business or Business + AI plan, and members and admins on an Enterprise plan. Download permissions for the video file itself are listed separately on Loom's download page.
Do my trims survive the download? Yes — that is the one thing the download page explicitly confirms is retained. It is the player-side layers (captions, chapters, CTAs) that do not come along.
Can I get the captions in a different language before I burn them in? Not from the transcript. Loom's multi-language page is explicit: "No, Loom currently does not support transcript translation. You can only generate transcripts in the language spoken in the video." Translation exists on the viewing side instead — Loom's captions page says "Viewers can translate captions into the language of their choice," but adds that "translations are auto-generated by AI based on the video's transcript" and that the feature is unavailable to viewers if the creator's workspace doesn't allow AI. Since the SRT you download comes from the transcript, a translated version has to be produced outside Loom.
Is there an API for exporting Loom captions in bulk? Loom's own page says "Loom does not offer a open API at this time," and describes the Loom SDK as something that "is not an open API and does not provide the same functionalities as APIs." Plan on doing this per video.
Quotes from Loom's official help center pages on downloading videos, transcription and closed captions, and regenerating transcripts, checked 16 September 2026. Loom's pages sometimes disagree with each other — verify against the current documentation before relying on a detail. More subtitle and export troubleshooting lives in the fix guides, and the browser-based converters are all in Clapr tools.
