Home / Guides
How to add audio description on YouTube
In short: in YouTube Studio, open Languages, choose the video and language, click Add next to Descriptive audio, and upload an audio-only file about as long as the video. If your channel does not have that option, publish a labeled audio-described version instead.
Who can add descriptive audio
YouTube offers descriptive audio tracks to creators who have access to its multi-language audio feature, which is being rolled out gradually. The original audio track in the same language must already exist on the video. Source: YouTube Help, Add audio descriptions.
Steps in YouTube Studio
- Sign in to YouTube Studio on a computer and select Languages in the left menu.
- Choose the video, then the language you want to edit.
- Next to Descriptive audio, click Add.
- Upload the description audio file and publish.
Viewers can then choose the descriptive track from the player settings.
What file you need
An audio-only file that is roughly the same length as the video, containing the original soundtrack with the descriptions mixed in. Seen Aloud delivers this as audio-description-track.mp3 (and a WAV copy) for every video, already the same length as the original. YouTube does not let other apps upload into this slot, so this last step is done by hand in Studio.
If you do not have the option
Publish a second video with the descriptions mixed in, titled for example "Lecture 4 (Audio Described)", and link the two in each description. This works for every channel and is also the usual way to publish extended description, which pauses the picture.
Captions for the described version
Upload captions to the described version too. Because extended description changes the timing, the captions must match the new length; Seen Aloud includes captions timed to the described video (described-video.en.srt).