How to import an SRT or subtitle file into After Effects

Can After Effects import an SRT file on its own?

We could not confirm it either way. On 3 November 2026 we read Adobe's help pages on Speech to Text, Dynamic Link and Motion Graphics templates. The parts we could read gave no steps for importing an SRT into After Effects, so this page does not print a native menu path. Check the After Effects user guide for the version you run before you rely on a workaround.

Adobe does document the Premiere side. Its Speech to Text help page covers generating transcripts and adding captions in Premiere on desktop. The Premiere product page says captions can be translated in 18 languages, and that Premiere Pro is now called Adobe Premiere. If the subtitle track already lives in Premiere, you can leave it there and bring only the styled pieces over from After Effects. The Premiere section below shows how.

If your copy of After Effects has no import route for your file, you have two options:

• a script or panel that reads SRT files and builds layers
• making the captions inside After Effects straight from the audio

Both are covered below, along with the route from Premiere.

What should the SRT file look like before you import it?

A clean SRT is plain text. It holds numbered cues. Each cue has a start time and an end time on one line, the subtitle text underneath, and a blank line before the next cue. If an import fails, check the file before you blame the importer.

1. Open the file in a plain-text editor, not a word processor. Check that the extension is .srt and not .srt.txt.
2. Scroll to the end. A last cue that was cut off partway, with a time line but no text, can stop a parser.
3. Look at the first cue's start time. If the SRT came from a longer edit, its times count from the start of that edit, not from the start of your comp.
4. If the text is in Devanagari or another non-Latin script, save it as UTF-8 text so the characters survive.
5. Fix obvious typos now. One edit in a text file is quicker than opening dozens of layers later.

How do I import subtitles into After Effects with the SRT importer?

On Windows, open the mouzeclick workspace, go to Motion lab and use the SRT importer. It brings the file in as subtitle layers and comes with a Subtitle editor for the text.

1. Install mouzeclick and paste your key. The app installs the After Effects workspace for you, so there is no separate download.
2. In After Effects, choose Window › Extensions › mouzeclick workspace.
3. Open the comp you're subtitling.
4. Go to Motion lab and open the SRT importer.
5. Pick your .srt file and bring it in as subtitle layers.
6. Use the Subtitle editor that comes with the importer to check names, typos and line breaks.

Motion lab holds other tools a subtitle job tends to need: a Silence remover with Dialogue, Podcast and Aggressive presets, a Comp resizer and Mark audio beats.

The workspace has 11 sections and 800+ tools, presets and templates, on Windows. Press / anywhere in it to search; search shows up to 12 results. The workspace atlas lists every section. The all-in-one After Effects extension guide walks through it as a single panel.

Can After Effects make subtitles without an SRT file?

Yes, with the workspace's Caption studio, on Windows. It writes captions from the audio on your computer, so you don't need a subtitle file at all.

• Where it runs. Transcription happens on your computer: “no data leaves your machine”.
• Engines. There are eight speech engines, from about 420 MB to about 4 GB. Each one downloads once. Whisper Large V3 Turbo is the default.
• Languages. Auto Detect plus Hinglish and 99 named languages make 101 language options. Larger models translate to English offline.
• Fixing. Every word is a chip you can fix.
• Motion. There are 13 word animations.
• Output. You get styled caption layers, subtitle layers from an SRT, or JSON.

So the same dialog covers both cases. Transcribe when you have only audio, or make subtitle layers from an SRT someone has already sent you. Our After Effects auto captions guide covers Caption studio in more detail.

How do I get Premiere subtitles into After Effects?

There are three ways. You can carry the subtitles across as an SRT, leave them in Premiere and link the After Effects work in, or hand Premiere a template.

Route 1: save an SRT in Premiere, import it in After Effects

If you make captions with mouzeclick Studio in Premiere Pro (Windows only), Whisper writes them on your computer. The models are Fast (60 MB), Accurate (190 MB) and Best (574 MB), each downloaded once, across 47 languages plus automatic detection.

• Correct words with Replace all and “Remember this fix”.
• Save the result as .srt.
• Bring that file into the After Effects SRT importer.

The Premiere Pro workspace's Caption studio (also Windows only) has a Subtitle Editor that writes a new .srt. See auto captions in Premiere Pro, and Hinglish captions in Premiere Pro for Roman-letter Hinglish.

If your captions came from Adobe's own Speech to Text, the pages we checked did not give export steps. Use Adobe's Premiere guide for your version.

Route 2: keep the subtitles in Premiere, link the graphics

Adobe documents importing After Effects comps into Premiere with the Import command or with Dynamic Link. Two more Adobe pages cover the rest of this route:

• Dynamic Link shares assets between the two apps without rendering.
• You can replace selected clips in Premiere with dynamically linked After Effects comps.

That lets you build the animated title or the styled hero line in After Effects and leave the full subtitle track in Premiere.

Route 3: a Motion Graphics template

Adobe's After Effects help describes using the Essential Graphics panel to make Motion Graphics templates (.mogrt) with custom controls for Premiere Pro. You build the subtitle design once in After Effects and reuse it in Premiere through the controls you set. Using After Effects templates in Premiere Pro covers that handoff. In the mouzeclick After Effects workspace, Library › Send to Premiere is another way to pass work across (Windows).

Is there an SRT to After Effects script?

Our research for this page found no maker's product page we could cite for a third-party SRT importer script. So we name none here and quote no price. If you already own one, or find one, how you install it depends on the file type it ships as.

• How to install After Effects scripts walks through installing script files.
• Plugin vs script vs extension explains how .aex, .jsx and .zxp files differ, where they install, and why a panel can go missing.

Before you pay for any SRT script, check five things on the maker's page:

1. which subtitle formats it reads (SRT only, or VTT and others too)
2. which After Effects versions it lists
3. whether it runs on Windows, macOS or both
4. whether it builds text layers you can restyle, or one layer driven by an expression
5. whether there is a trial

If you run a script often, mouzerun turns it into a one-click button inside After Effects, on Windows and Mac. A button can hold one of five kinds of action: a script, an expression, an animation preset, a menu command or a keyframe ease. You can export your buttons and import them again. mouzerun's feature page lists all 31 items.

How do I style and animate subtitle layers after import?

Name the layers first, then style them in batches. A long subtitle comp is hard to work with when every layer has the same name.

• Rename. The workspace's Timeline › Rename tab uses 7 name tokens: {name}, {source}, {type}, {label}, {n}, {index} and {comp} (Windows). See batch rename layers in After Effects.
• Animate in. Type studio has 159 text presets. A hover preview plays each one with “Double-click to apply” underneath (Windows). The text animation presets guide breaks them down by group.
• Kinetic styles on any system. mouzetype applies 17 kinetic type styles as real text animators you can retime, on Windows and Mac.
• Split a line. The workspace Toolbox's Text exploder puts the characters, words, lines or paragraphs of a text layer onto their own layers (Windows). Use it when one subtitle needs word-by-word emphasis.
• One flick. The After Effects Tool wheel holds 114 tools in 13 groups. Open it with F10 or a held right button. Each action is one undo step. It runs on Windows and Mac and needs the bridge, installed once from the app's Tool wheel page.

Why won't my subtitles import into After Effects?

Usually the panel isn't open or the file is malformed. Work through these checks in order.

1. You can't find the panel. The workspace runs on Windows only. On Windows, open it from Window › Extensions › mouzeclick workspace. mouzeclick installs it, so check the app is installed. It also needs an internet connection while it runs.
2. The file won't read. Go back to the file checks above. Confirm the extension is .srt, the text is plain, the last cue is complete and there is a blank line between cues.
3. Lines land early or late. The SRT's times count from the start of the edit it came from. If your comp starts partway into that edit, the subtitles will be offset by the same amount.
4. Characters come out as boxes or symbols. Re-save the file as UTF-8 text and import it again.
5. Your After Effects version. mouzeclick publishes no minimum version. The panel files support After Effects CC 2018 or later. Every panel was run tool by tool in After Effects 26.5 on Windows, in both expression engines. Try your own version during the 3-day trial.
6. The SRT is messy throughout. Skip it. Caption studio can write new captions from the audio, and every word is a chip you can fix.

If you are troubleshooting on the Premiere side, see Premiere Pro captions not working.

Does the SRT importer work on a Mac?

No. The workspaces are part of mouzeclick on Windows, and the Mac app does not include them. That rules out the SRT importer, the Subtitle editor and Caption studio on a Mac, along with Studio's captions in Premiere Pro.

On a Mac (macOS 12 or newer, Apple Silicon or Intel) you still get:

• the 15 After Effects extensions, including mouzetype, mouzerun and mouzekit
• the After Effects Tool wheel
• Search effects
• the mouse app with its wheels and gestures

Apple has not notarized the Mac app yet, so macOS asks you to allow it the first time it opens. The Mac install guide covers the four steps. For SRT import on a Mac, use a script whose maker lists macOS support.

Where mouzeclick fits (we make it)

We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. It fits if you edit on Windows and want SRT import, a Subtitle editor and captions from audio in the same After Effects panel as the rest of your motion tools.

It costs one plan: $25 a month, $249 a year, or $499 once for one of the first 100 lifetime keys. Both workspaces are included on Windows. The trial runs 3 days with no card, and every Premiere Pro and After Effects tool works fully. Prices are on the pricing section.

It is the wrong pick in three cases:

• You work only on a Mac.
• Your After Effects version already imports your subtitle file the way you need.
• All you want is one small script for one job.

Questions people ask

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-03. Prices and features change: each link goes to the maker's own page.

1. Adobe: Speech to Text in Premiere (help page)
2. Adobe: Import After Effects compositions into Premiere
3. Adobe: Share assets between After Effects and Premiere using Dynamic Link
4. Adobe: Replace clips with a dynamically linked After Effects composition
5. Adobe: Creating Motion Graphics templates in After Effects
6. Adobe Premiere product page (name change, caption translation)

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