Syncing subtitles to audio

When downloaded or generated subtitles drift out of sync — starting too early, too late, or drifting progressively due to a framerate mismatch — Auto-Sync realigns every cue automatically by analyzing the audio, powered by the offline ffsubsync engine.

Two sync modes

  • Sync with Video Audio — analyzes speech in the video itself to align subtitles. Takes roughly 20–30 seconds. Unavailable for subtitle-only files with no video.
  • Sync with Reference Subtitle — uses another subtitle track that's already correctly timed as a reference. Near-instant. A dropdown lets you pick which detected track to use (the currently loaded one is excluded from the list).

Advanced options

Collapsed by default, behind a chevron:

  • Skip framerate correction — disables ffsubsync's automatic correction for framerate-drift errors.
  • Use golden-section search (slower, more accurate) — a more precise but slower alignment algorithm.
  • Use auditok VAD (for low-quality audio) — an alternative voice-activity-detection engine, only shown in video-sync mode.
  • Max offset — caps how far ffsubsync will shift subtitles, in seconds (1–3600, default 60).

Running a sync

Click Sync with Video or Sync with Reference (the button label matches your selected mode). A progress modal appears — "This may take 20–60 seconds depending on video length…" — and the current subtitles are replaced with the re-timed result once it completes. Like any edit, this can be undone with ⌘Z.

Syncing many files at once

From the file list view (not the editor), select multiple files and click Sync Selected to open a bulk version of this same dialog. It applies your chosen options to every selected file that has a video track, automatically loading each file's first subtitle track if needed, and writes each synced result to disk immediately. Files without a video (subtitle-only) are skipped and reported in a summary dialog once the batch finishes, alongside how many succeeded.

FAQ

My subtitles drift more and more as the video plays — will sync fix that?
Yes — that's a framerate mismatch, and ffsubsync's correction (unless you've checked "Skip framerate correction") specifically handles progressive drift, not just a fixed offset.
Do the subtitle and audio need to be in the same language?
No — alignment matches when speech happens, not what's being said, so a translated subtitle syncs against the original-language audio just fine.
Why is "Sync with Video Audio" greyed out?
You're working with a subtitle-only file that has no accompanying video/audio. Use "Sync with Reference Subtitle" instead, or load the matching video.