Help

Open the tab with the video or call, click the VivaDub icon in the browser toolbar and sign in with Google (once). Choose a language in “Dub into” and press “Start”. In a few seconds you’ll hear the translation, and a panel with subtitles appears on the page. To stop, press “Stop” in the extension window or on the panel on the page.

Signing in lets us count your free and paid minutes on your account. Google gives us only your email — never your password or other account data. Translation doesn’t start without signing in.

After your first Google sign-in, your account gets 10 minutes of translation for free, once. The balance is shared by every computer where you sign in with the same account. On one computer, only one Google account can get the free minutes. To keep translating after that, you need a paid plan.

On any tab where people speak: YouTube, Netflix, Twitch, online courses, calls in the browser and other sites. It doesn’t work on Chrome’s internal pages or in the extension store — Chrome doesn’t allow capturing their audio.

VivaDub is built for Google Chrome on desktop. Other Chromium-based browsers (Edge, Opera, Yandex Browser) can install extensions from the Chrome Web Store too, but we haven’t tested them yet. Chrome extensions don’t work on phones.

The translation can be dubbed into 55 languages. VivaDub usually detects the original language on its own, and if it gets it wrong you can pick the language yourself.

By default “Original language” is set to “Auto-detect”: VivaDub recognizes the language from speech and shows it in that field with an “AUTO” badge. If the video uses a rare language or mixes languages and the translation looks odd, choose the original language manually.

In the extension window, press ⚙ next to “Dubbed audio” and pick a mode in the “Voice” row: “Auto”, “Female” or “Male”. Below are the voices for the translation language: press ▶ to listen and choose the one you like. In “Auto” mode VivaDub picks a female or male voice for each speaker. The same choice is in the “Audio Mixer” on the panel on the page.

In “Auto” mode the gender is guessed from the pitch of the speaker’s voice, so on the first phrases or with loud music VivaDub may get it wrong — it usually corrects itself after a few phrases. If only one person speaks in the video, simply choose “Female” or “Male”.

The “Sound balance” slider in the “Dubbed audio” settings (⚙) and in the “Audio Mixer” on the panel sets how loud the original is compared to the translation. By default the original plays in the background: “original 25% · dubbing 75%”. The “Original only” and “Translation only” buttons keep just one sound.

Press ⚙ next to “Subtitles”: you can show only the translation or both languages, choose which comes first, put subtitles in a separate panel or right on the video, and change the font size and background opacity. The “Subtitles” switch turns them off completely — the dubbing keeps working.

VivaDub translates live speech: a phrase is recognized, translated and voiced after it has been said, so the translation runs a few seconds behind. When people speak fast, the dubbing speeds up a little to keep pace. Subtitles appear no later than the dubbing, so they’re handy for following along.

If nobody speaks on the tab for 5 minutes, VivaDub stops translating so your minutes aren’t wasted. 30 seconds before that, the panel shows a countdown and a “Keep going” button. You can turn auto-pause off in the extension window: “Advanced” → “Stop after 5 minutes of silence”.

Translation stops, and the original keeps playing as usual. The extension window shows a message about the limit. To keep translating, you’ll need a paid plan.

Yes. Sign in to the extension with the same Google account — your remaining minutes are shared by all your computers. Settings and translation history are kept separately on each computer.

While translation is on, the tab’s audio goes to our server and to speech recognition, translation and voice services — only to translate and voice it. We don’t record audio and don’t store the recognized text or translations. The list of services and details are in the privacy policy.

Only in your browser on this computer, and only while the browser is open — it’s never sent to a server. Open it with the “View history” button. To stop saving history altogether, uncheck “Save translation history” under “Advanced”.

If “Share anonymous statistics” is checked, the server receives only how many minutes were translated and between which languages — no email, website addresses or text. These numbers make up the public statistics on the website. The checkbox is under “Advanced”.

Make sure the “Dubbed audio” switch is on and “Sound balance” isn’t pushed all the way to the original. Check the volume of the tab and your computer. If subtitles appear but there’s no sound, press “Stop” and start translating again.

While translation is running, the tab’s audio goes through VivaDub. If you can’t hear the original, move “Sound balance” toward the original. After “Stop” the tab’s audio returns to normal; if it doesn’t, reload the page.

Make sure you’re signed in with Google and opened the extension window on the tab you want to translate. Chrome’s internal pages and the extension store can’t be translated. If the tab’s audio is already being captured or the page froze, reload it and press “Start” again.

If you hid the panel, open the extension window and press “Show panel”. If the panel didn’t appear after “Start”, reload the page and start translating again.

Write to support@vivadub.com: what happened, on which website and between which languages you were translating. You can copy the address in the extension window — at the bottom, under “Contact us”.