Burning subtitles into the picture in Shotcut is a single filter — Subtitle Burn In — and it can only be attached to the Timeline Output, never to a clip. That one restriction causes most of the "I added the filter and nothing happened" reports, and Shotcut's own documentation states it in two separate places.
This walkthrough follows the order the official Shotcut User Guide and release notes lay out: get subtitles into the Subtitles panel, attach the filter to the right place, style it, then export. Everything below is quoted from those official sources.
Before you start
You need a version that has the feature. The user guide is specific about when both halves arrived:
"The Subtitles Panel was added in Shotcut 24.08"
"The Subtitles Burn-In Filter was added in Shotcut 24.08"
Finish your edit before you write subtitles. This is the single most expensive mistake in the whole workflow, and the guide spells out both the rule and the reason:
"Subtitles can only be added to the Timeline. They can not be added to the playlist or clips. We recommend to save subtitle editing until the timeline editing is complete because moving or cutting clips on the timeline will break the subtitle synchronization."
So the prerequisite is not just "a project" — it is a timeline you are done cutting. If you burn in subtitles and then trim a clip in the middle, the guide tells you what happens to everything downstream.
Step 1: get the subtitles into the Subtitles panel
The burn-in filter does not read a file from disk. It reads subtitles that already exist inside your project, which the guide states plainly: the filter "can overlay subtitles that have been authored in the Subtitles Panel."
Two routes into that panel. To author from scratch, the guide says to "click the 'add' button and give the subtitle track and name and language." To bring in a file you already have, Shotcut accepts four formats:
"Importing Subtitles Subtitles can also be imported. Supported subtitle import formats include: SRT, VTT, ASS, and SSA."
Park the playhead before you import. This is a documented trap, quoted verbatim from the guide, typo and all:
"Subtitles are imported at the current cursor position.So be sure to place the cursor before importing subtitles from a file."
Once the track exists, "the subtitle track area will appear in the timeline above the top video track." You can create more than one: "Multiple subtitle tracks can be added. But only the currently selected subtitle track is shown in the Subtitle Panel and the Timeline."
Step 2: add the filter to the Timeline Output
Here is the part that decides whether this works. The user guide:
"The Subtitle Burn-In Filter can overlay subtitles that have been authored in the Subtitles Panel. The filter can only be added to the Timeline Output."
And the release note that introduced it, which says the same thing in fewer words:
"Added Subtitle Burn In video filter (only works on Output track)." (Release 24.08.29)
Two official pages, one rule. Select the Timeline Output — not a clip, not a video track — and add Subtitle Burn In there. If you select a clip first, you are adding the filter somewhere it is documented not to work, and the usual symptom is an export with no visible text at all.
Step 3: point the filter at a subtitle track
Adding the filter is not enough on its own. From the guide (the "subitle" spelling is theirs):
"After you add the Subtitle Burn-In Filter to the Timeline Output, select the subitle track name from the Subtitle Panel that you want to overlay."
This step exists precisely because multiple subtitle tracks are allowed. You are telling one filter which named track to draw. Whether several tracks can be burned at once is not something the user guide describes — check the official documentation if you need two languages on screen simultaneously.
Step 4: style the text
Styling reuses controls you may already know:
"The subtitle overlay text can be configured similar to the Simple:Text filter - including the preview window controls for size and position."
That means size and position are set by dragging in the preview, not by typing coordinates. One newer addition is worth knowing about before it surprises you — the release notes record:
"Added a Typewriter group of options to the Burn In Subtitle filter, defaults to word-by-word with no cursor" (Release 26.4.30)
Word-by-word with no cursor is what that group of options defaults to. If you are on a build from 26.4.30 or later and want a single static line per cue rather than an animated reveal, that is the group to look at. The release note does not describe the rest of its controls, so check the official documentation for those.
Step 5: export
Nothing special is required at export time — the burn-in is part of the picture by then. The guide's advice for the panel itself is blunt:
"The most important thing to know is to click Export File to export your project as a new video file."
For a web upload, the official FAQ's suggestion is "Upload to a video-sharing web site: H.264 High Profile or YouTube". And from the quick start guide, one instruction that people ignore at their own cost: "Do not close Shotcut until the export finishes."
One thing to decide consciously: burned-in subtitles and embedded subtitles are separate outputs, and you may get both. The guide says that "subtitles will be embedded in the output file if the file format supports it," naming MKV, MOV and MP4 as formats that commonly support them. Release notes from the same month as the filter add the off switch:
"Added Export > Other > Disable subtitles checkbox." (Release 24.08.29)
So if you want pixels only and no selectable track riding along, that checkbox is where you turn the second copy off.
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
If what you actually have is a finished MP4 and a matching SRT, the whole Shotcut route is overkill — you would be importing a rendered file into an editor just to re-render it. The tool above burns the SRT into the video in your browser, with nothing uploaded anywhere. The burn subtitles to video page is the same tool with more of the options exposed.
Common mistakes
- Filter on a clip instead of the Output. Documented twice as Output-only. This is the first thing to check when nothing appears.
- Subtitling before the edit is locked. The guide warns that moving or cutting clips "will break the subtitle synchronization."
- Importing without parking the playhead. Import lands at the cursor position, so a misplaced playhead offsets the entire file.
- Expecting a WebVTT file out of Shotcut. Import takes four formats; "Subtitles are exported in SRT format." If a player needs VTT, convert it afterwards with SRT to VTT.
- Assuming an old bug is still live. Release notes record that using a range marker as the export source "creates a bad output" with subtitles was fixed in Release 24.11.17, and that off-by-one frame errors in the subtitle bar and the Subtitle Burn In filter were fixed in Release 26.8.1. Those are fix records, not current behaviour.
FAQ
Why is my Subtitle Burn In filter doing nothing? Almost always because it is attached to a clip. The user guide says "The filter can only be added to the Timeline Output," and the release note that added it says it "only works on Output track." Remove it from the clip and add it to the Timeline Output instead.
Can Shotcut burn in an SRT file I already have? Yes, but indirectly. Import the SRT into the Subtitles panel first — SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA are the listed import formats — then point the burn-in filter at that track. The filter reads the panel, not your disk.
Can I export a WebVTT file from Shotcut instead? The guide lists four import formats and one export format: "Subtitles are exported in SRT format." Export the SRT and convert it outside Shotcut if you need VTT.
Do burned-in subtitles also stay selectable in the player? Not by themselves — burned-in text is part of the image. But Shotcut also embeds subtitles when the container supports it, so you can end up with both. Release 24.08.29 added a Disable subtitles checkbox in the export options for exactly that case.
Can Shotcut write the subtitles for me? It has a Speech To Text feature, added in version 24.10.29, based on OpenAI's Whisper via the whisper.cpp project. The guide is candid about its limits: "Subtitle items sometimes start earlier than expected" and "Expect there to be occasional errors." Plan on editing the result in the Subtitles panel before burning it in.
More Shotcut walkthroughs and export fixes live in the how-to hub; if your render dies before you get this far, start with Shotcut export failed. The browser-based converters are all on the Clapr tools page.
Quotes from the official Shotcut User Guide (June 2026), the Shotcut FAQ, and the Shotcut release notes, as captured 16 September 2026. Verify against the current documentation before relying on version numbers.
