How you delete text in a video depends on where the text lives. If you added it in an editor such as iMovie, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Canva, Clipchamp or CapCut and you still have the project, the text is a separate layer: select it, press Delete and export again. If it's a subtitle track your player can switch off, you can drop the track for free. If the text is hardcoded, meaning burned into the frames, there is no layer left to delete, and the fastest clean fix is to erase it with an AI tool like Subtitle Remover, which rebuilds the picture behind it.
This guide starts with the free fixes in each editor, then shows how to delete hardcoded subtitles and other burned-in text.
TL;DR
- Still have the editing project? The text is a layer. Delete it in your editor and export again. It's free and the result is perfect.
- Can your player switch the text off? It's a soft subtitle track. Remove it with FFmpeg or MKVToolNix. Free and lossless.
- Hardcoded subtitles or other burned-in text? Use Subtitle Remover: upload, keep Auto for subtitles near the bottom or pick Box select for text anywhere, and download a clean MP4. From 1 credit per second, with 15 free credits to start.
Which kind of text is in your video?
Text ends up in a video in one of three ways:
- A text layer in an editing project. Titles, lower thirds, stickers and auto captions that you added in CapCut, iMovie, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Canva or Clipchamp. They stay separate, editable clips until you export.
- A soft subtitle track. Subtitles stored as their own stream inside an MP4 or MKV file, or as an
.srtor.vttfile next to it. The player draws them on top of the picture. - Burned-in text. Anything that was rendered into the image: an exported video with captions, a downloaded clip, a screen recording, a watermark, or text generated by an AI video model. There is no text layer anymore, only pixels.
Two questions sort them out. First, do you still have the project file the text was added in? If yes, it's a layer. If not, open the video in VLC and choose Subtitle → Sub Track → Disable (on YouTube, press the CC button). If the text disappears, it's a soft track. If it stays, it's burned in.
Delete a text layer in your video editor
An editor never changes your source footage. Text you add sits on its own track above the video until you export, so deleting it works the same way everywhere: find the text clip, delete it, export again.
| Editor | How to delete the text |
|---|---|
| iMovie on Mac | Click the title clip above the video in the timeline and press Delete |
| iMovie on iPhone and iPad | Tap the video clip, tap the Titles (T) button and choose None |
| Premiere Pro | Select the graphic clip on its video track, or the caption clips on the caption track, and press Delete |
| DaVinci Resolve | Select the Text or Text+ clip on the Edit page timeline and press Delete |
| Canva | Click the text box on the page and press Delete, or use the trash icon |
| Clipchamp | Select the text clip on the timeline and press Delete, or click the trash icon |
| CapCut | Select the text clip and press Delete, or tap Delete on mobile. See how to remove text from video in CapCut |
A few things catch people out:
- Auto captions are text clips too. Premiere Pro, Clipchamp and CapCut put generated captions on their own track. Delete the caption track to remove every line at once. How to remove captions from a video covers captions in more detail.
- Text inside a template or compound clip. If the text won't select on its own, it's nested. Open the template, compound clip or Fusion composition and delete it there.
- Text in a TikTok or Instagram draft. While the video is still a draft, open it, press and hold the text, and drag it to the bin. Once posted, the text is part of the video. See how to remove text from TikTok video.
- A watermark from the editor. If the text you want gone is CapCut branding at the end of the video, see how to remove CapCut watermark.
After deleting, export again. The new file is clean, with no quality loss beyond the normal export.
If you only have the exported file and not the project, the text is no longer a layer. It's either a soft track or burned in.
Delete a soft subtitle track
A soft track can be removed without any AI and without re-encoding the picture. You copy the video and audio as they are and leave the subtitles out.
With FFmpeg, this keeps every stream except subtitles:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0 -map -0:s -c copy output.mkv-map 0 takes every stream, -map -0:s removes the subtitle streams, and -c copy copies the rest unchanged. It works the same way for MP4 files.
If you'd rather not use the command line, MKVToolNix lets you untick the subtitle tracks and remux the file, and HandBrake lets you remove them in the Subtitles tab (HandBrake re-encodes the video, though). For an .srt or .vtt file sitting next to the video, deleting or renaming that file is enough. For step-by-step instructions on each tool and YouTube Studio, see remove subtitles from video.
Delete hardcoded subtitles and burned-in text with Subtitle Remover
Hardcoded subtitles, captions on a downloaded clip, a title on a video whose project is gone: once text is burned in, no editor can delete it. Editors can only crop it off, blur it or cover it with a box, and all three leave the frame visibly damaged. For a deeper comparison of those options, see how to remove text from video.
To actually delete the text, use Subtitle Remover. It's built for exactly this job: AI video inpainting erases the text and rebuilds the background from the frames before and after, where the camera or subject has moved and what was behind the letters is visible.
- Upload the video. Open the Studio and add an MP4, MOV, MKV or WebM file up to 1 GB, at up to 2K resolution.
- Pick a mode. Keep Auto for hardcoded subtitles in the lower half of the frame: it finds every line by itself, including two-line and bilingual subtitles. Switch to Box select for titles, text higher up, watermarks or logos, and draw a box over each area, a little larger than the text.
- Start the task. Auto costs 1 credit per second of the video and Box select costs 3. You pay for the actual seconds, and a failed task refunds its credits.
- Download the clean MP4. Most clips finish in about 12–20 minutes, and you don't need to keep the page open. Output is an MP4 at up to 1080p, ready to import back into your editor.
New accounts get 15 free credits, enough to test a 15-second clip in Auto. Source and output files are deleted after 30 days and are never used for training. For short-form captions, the caption remover opens with Auto selected, and for a logo or watermark, use remove watermark from video.
Tips before you delete text in video
- Look for the project first. Check your editor's recent projects, drafts or cloud backup. Deleting a layer and exporting again always beats repairing pixels.
- Use the highest-quality file you have. Each re-upload and re-download adds compression, which blurs letter edges and leaves less detail to rebuild from.
- Trim to the part with text. AI removal is billed per second, so a shorter clip costs less.
- Check fast motion after processing. Moments where something moves quickly behind the text are where reconstruction has the least to work with.
- Keep new text separate. If you are re-captioning, export a clean version without text and keep the captions as a soft track or a separate layer, so it's easy to change them later.
FAQ
How do I delete text in a video for free?
If you still have the editing project, delete the text layer in your editor and export again. That costs nothing. If the text is a soft subtitle track, remove it with FFmpeg, MKVToolNix or HandBrake, also for free. Only burned-in text needs AI reconstruction, and Subtitle Remover's 15 sign-up credits cover a 15-second test clip.
How do I delete text from a video on my iPhone?
If you added the text in iMovie, tap the clip, tap Titles and choose None. In CapCut, tap the text clip and tap Delete. If the text is part of a video you received or downloaded, it's burned in. Upload it to the Subtitle Remover Studio in your phone's browser and download the cleaned MP4.
How do I delete hardcoded subtitles from a video?
Hardcoded subtitles are part of the picture, so no editor can delete them. Upload the video to the Subtitle Remover Studio, keep Auto, and download the clean MP4. The subtitles are erased and the background is rebuilt frame by frame, instead of cropped, blurred or covered.
How do I delete text from a video after exporting?
Open the original project, delete the text clip and export again. If the project is gone, the text is burned into the exported file. Upload it to Subtitle Remover, use Auto for subtitles near the bottom or Box select for text anywhere, and download a clean copy.
Will deleting text reduce video quality?
Deleting a layer or a soft track does not touch the rest of the picture. With AI removal, only the text area is rebuilt and the rest of the frame keeps its detail. Subtitle Remover outputs up to 1080p, so a 2K source is scaled down.
Is it okay to delete text from someone else's video?
Only edit videos you own or have permission to edit. Deleting a caption, watermark or credit doesn't give you any right to reuse someone else's footage.
Conclusion
To delete text in a video, start with the project file. If you have it, the text is a layer: delete it in iMovie, Premiere Pro, Resolve, Canva, Clipchamp or CapCut and export again. If the player can switch the text off, drop the subtitle track for free. If the text is hardcoded, Subtitle Remover deletes it and rebuilds the frame, instead of hiding it.
Have a clip with hardcoded subtitles? Open the Subtitle Remover Studio, upload it, keep Auto, and download the clean MP4 when it's done.
