# Audio Caption Timing Shifter

Shift SRT or WebVTT captions to a likely speech onset or by a manual offset.

> Canonical page: https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-caption-timing-shifter

- **Category:** Media

- **Keywords:** caption timing, subtitle shift, srt, webvtt, speech alignment

## Overview

Moves every cue by one shared offset. Auto mode aligns the first cue to the first segment detected by a speech-range activity heuristic; manual mode applies your exact offset. It preserves cue durations, but does not transcribe audio or correct per-cue drift.

## Inputs

- **Audio File** (file): Select audio to align
- **Caption File** (file): Select an SRT or WebVTT file
- **Alignment Mode** (select)
- **Manual Offset (s)** (number)
- **Output Format** (select)

## When to use

- When your subtitle file is out of sync with the audio track by a constant delay or advance.
- When you want to automatically align the start of your subtitles with the first spoken word in an audio recording.
- When you need to convert and shift subtitle formats between SRT and WebVTT to match a specific media player requirement.

## How it works

- Upload your audio file and the corresponding SRT or WebVTT caption file.
- Choose between 'Auto from first speech onset' to let the tool detect the start of speech, or 'Manual offset' to specify a custom shift in seconds.
- Select your desired output format (SRT or WebVTT) and run the shifter to download the adjusted caption file.

## Use cases

- Aligning a pre-written SRT script to a newly recorded podcast episode.
- Correcting a constant 2.5-second delay in a WebVTT file for an online video lecture.
- Converting an SRT file to WebVTT while simultaneously shifting the timing to match an edited audio track.

## Frequently asked questions

### Does this tool transcribe my audio file?

No, it does not transcribe audio or generate new text; it only shifts the timing of your existing caption file.

### Can it fix subtitles that drift out of sync over time?

No, it applies a single, uniform time offset to all cues and does not correct progressive drift.

### What audio formats are supported?

It supports standard audio files, which are analyzed to detect the initial speech onset.

### Can I shift subtitles backward?

Yes, you can enter a negative value in the manual offset field to shift the captions earlier.

### Does shifting change the duration of individual subtitles?

No, the duration of each subtitle cue remains exactly the same; only the start and end timestamps are shifted.

## Related tools

- [Language Learning Loop Maker](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-language-learning-loop-maker): Turn speech phrases into a repeatable practice track with a configurable pause between repetitions.
- [Audio Read-Along Cue Generator](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-read-along-cue-generator): Generate sentence or word-level timestamp cues from a narration audio and its script, for karaoke-style reading and language learning.
- [Audio Script Timing Estimator](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-script-timing-estimator): Estimate how long a script will take to read aloud, with optional calibration from a recorded sample.
- [Audio Add Chapters](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-add-chapters): Add chapters to an audio file from a label/chapters file
- [Audio to Text Transcriber (AI)](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-to-text-transcriber): Transcribe speech from audio (wav/mp3/m4a/flac/ogg/webm/aac) to text, SRT, VTT or JSON using the grok-stt AI model. Up to 10 minutes.
- [Audio Add Silence](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-add-silence): Add a specified duration of silence to the start or end of an audio file
- [Audio Breath Control Editor](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-breath-control-editor): Detect breaths in speech and naturally crossfade to reduce, remove, or keep them.
- [Drum Loop Slicer](https://elysiatools.com/en/tools/audio-drum-loop-slicer): Detect drum-hit transients in an audio loop, slice it into individual hits, and export them as a ZIP with timing and optional MIDI.

## Samples

- [Copyright-Free MP3 Audio Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/mp3-samples): Collection of royalty-free audio samples for testing and development purposes including nature sounds, meditation music, and ambient audio
- [Copyright-Free FLAC Audio Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/flac-samples): Lossless FLAC audio samples for testing and development, mirrored from MP3 set with nature sounds and meditation music
- [Copyright-Free WAV Audio Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/wav-samples): Uncompressed PCM WAV audio samples for testing and development, mirrored from MP3 set with nature sounds and meditation music
- [Speech Learning & Safety Audio Samples](https://elysiatools.com/en/samples/audio-learning-safety-samples): Deterministic synthetic WAV inputs for pronunciation comparison, dictation preflight, alert degradation, and voice privacy tools.