How to fix Microsoft Teams live captions not appearing or showing the wrong language during meetings

Summary

This guide helps you troubleshoot and resolve: How to fix Microsoft Teams live captions not appearing or showing the wrong language during meetings. Follow the steps below to fix the issue.

Common Causes

Microsoft Teams live captions are a valuable accessibility feature that transcribes spoken words during meetings and calls in real time. When captions fail to appear or display in the wrong language, the cause is usually a simple settings misconfiguration. This guide walks you through enabling, configuring, and troubleshooting live captions across the Teams desktop app, web app, and mobile app.

Quick Fix Steps

If you need captions working straight away, run through these checks first:

1. Confirm you are running the latest version of the Teams desktop or mobile app.
2. Open the meeting and click More actions (three dots) in the meeting controls bar.
3. Select Turn on live captions from the menu.
4. Click More actions again, then choose Language and speech.
5. Set Spoken language to match the language being spoken in the meeting.
6. Leave the meeting, wait 30 seconds, and rejoin to refresh the caption engine.

If captions still do not appear after these steps, continue to the detailed instructions below.

Detailed Instructions

Enabling live captions in the Teams desktop app (Windows and macOS)

1. Open Microsoft Teams and join or start a meeting.
2. Hover over the meeting controls bar at the top of the window.
3. Click More actions (the three horizontal dots icon).
4. Select Turn on live captions. Captions will appear at the bottom of the meeting window.
5. To change the caption language, click More actions again and choose Language and speech.
6. Under Spoken language, pick the language being spoken in the meeting. Teams supports over 50 spoken languages and 100 translation languages.
7. Under Caption language, choose the language you want the captions to be translated into. This is useful when other participants are speaking a different language.
8. Click Save to apply your changes.

Enabling live captions in the Teams web app

1. Navigate to https://teams.microsoft.com in Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or another supported browser.
2. Join your meeting from the calendar or chat notification.
3. Click More actions in the meeting controls.
4. Select Turn on live captions.
5. To change languages, return to More actions and choose Language and speech.
6. Select your preferred Spoken language and Caption language, then click Save.

Enabling live captions in the Teams mobile app (iOS and Android)

1. Open the Teams mobile app and join your meeting.
2. Tap the screen to reveal the meeting controls.
3. Tap More actions (three dots).
4. Select Turn on live captions.
5. To change language, tap More actions again and choose Language and speech.
6. Pick your Spoken language and Caption language, then confirm.

Setting a default caption language

You can configure Teams to always use a specific caption language without selecting it each meeting.

1. Click the three dots next to your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams.
2. Select Settings.
3. Choose Accessibility from the left-hand menu.
4. Under Captions, toggle on Turn on live captions automatically if desired.
5. Set your default Spoken language and Caption language.
6. Close the settings window. Your preferences are saved automatically.

Troubleshooting

Captions do not appear at all

• Confirm you clicked Turn on live captions and that the toggle is on. Look for the small CC icon in the meeting controls to verify the state.
• Check that your device has a working internet connection. Live captions require a stable connection to process speech in the cloud.
• Sign out of Teams completely, then sign back in. This refreshes your session and clears cached settings.
• If you are using the desktop app, try the web app at https://teams.microsoft.com to rule out a local installation issue.
• Check for app updates. On Windows, click the three dots in Teams and select Check for updates. On macOS, use the Microsoft AutoUpdate tool.
• Confirm your organisation has not disabled live captions in the Teams admin centre.

Captions appear in the wrong language

• Open More actions and select Language and speech.
• Set Spoken language to match the language actually being spoken in the meeting. If you select the wrong language, Teams will attempt to transcribe in that language and produce inaccurate results.
• Set Caption language to the language you want to read. Teams will translate the spoken language into your chosen caption language in real time.
• If multiple languages are spoken during the meeting, captions may switch or become less accurate. Choose the dominant language for best results.
• Save your settings and rejoin the meeting if the change does not take effect immediately.

Captions are inaccurate or lag behind the speaker

• Move closer to your microphone and reduce background noise where possible.
• Use a headset or external microphone rather than a built-in laptop microphone for clearer audio input.
• Check your internet connection. Slow or unstable connections delay the speech-to-text processing.
• Close other applications that may be consuming bandwidth, such as video streaming or large downloads.
• Ensure your device meets the minimum specifications for running Teams. Older hardware may struggle with real-time transcription.

Captions stop working mid-meeting

• Click Turn off live captions, wait five seconds, then click Turn on live captions again.
• If the issue persists, leave and rejoin the meeting.
• Restart the Teams app and rejoin the meeting.
• Check the Microsoft 365 Service Health Status page for any reported outages affecting Teams live captions.

Live captions option is missing or greyed out

• Confirm your Teams licence includes live captions. Live captions are available in Microsoft Teams Premium, Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, and most enterprise plans. If you are unsure of your plan, check with your administrator.
• Verify that the meeting organiser has not restricted captioning through the meeting policy applied to your account.
• Check whether a Teams policy has been applied that disables live captions for your account. Your administrator can review this in the Teams admin centre under Meeting policies.
• Try joining the meeting from a different device or network to rule out a local configuration issue.
• If the option remains unavailable, contact your IT administrator to confirm whether live captions are enabled in your tenant's policy settings.

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