How you remove hearing-impaired subtitles depends on whether you're watching or you own the file. As a viewer, you usually can't edit the text, so switch to a subtitle track without the sound cues: on Netflix pick English rather than English (CC) where both exist, and check that your phone, TV or streaming box isn't set to prefer SDH. As the owner of an SRT file, strip the extra text: the free SRT cleaner removes bracketed sound tags, speaker labels, music notes and the empty cues they leave, and Subtitle Edit has a Remove text for hearing impaired tool that does the same with more control.
Hearing-impaired text is everything in a subtitle that isn't spoken dialogue: [MUSIC PLAYING], (laughs), JOHN: before a line, ♪ around lyrics, [door slams]. Tracks that carry it are labeled SDH (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing) or CC. What each label means is covered in English vs English CC vs SDH subtitles; this guide is about getting rid of the extra text when you don't need it. Settings below were checked on 21 October 2026.
As a viewer: switch to a dialogue-only track
| Service or device | Where to change it | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix | Audio & Subtitles, during playback | Pick English over English (CC) on titles that offer both |
| Prime Video | Subtitles or Closed Caption icon in the playback menu | Amazon's help page doesn't explain track names; try each English track |
| Plex | Subtitle menu during playback or on the preplay screen | A manual pick overrides automatic selection from then on |
| VLC | Subtitle menu | Choose another track, or Disable |
| iPhone and iPad | Settings > Accessibility > Subtitles & Captioning | Turn off Closed Captions + SDH |
| Apple TV 4K | Settings > Accessibility > Subtitles and Captioning | Turn off Closed Captions and SDH |
| Roku | Star button > Closed captioning, or Settings > Accessibility > Captions mode | Netflix, Hulu and Sling TV ignore this setting |
| Samsung TV | Settings > All Settings > General & Privacy > Accessibility > Caption Settings | Turn Caption off |
Netflix
Start playing, then tap or click the screen (on a TV, press up or down on the remote; on Apple TV, swipe up) and choose Audio & Subtitles. Since 24 April 2025, Netflix has offered two English options on new titles: English shows only the spoken dialogue, and English (CC) adds audio cues like [door slams]. Netflix's announcement said the dialogue-only option would come to all new Netflix originals. Older and licensed titles may have only one English track. Netflix's help page says titles without SDH may default to dialogue-only subtitles anyway, so on those there's nothing to remove.
Prime Video
During playback, select the Subtitles or Closed Caption icon in the playback menu and pick a language, according to Amazon's help page for web, Amazon devices and mobile. That page doesn't say how tracks are named, so if a title lists two English tracks, try each on a scene with background noise and keep the one without sound labels.
Plex
Pick the subtitle track in the Plex app during playback or on the preplay screen. Plex's account settings article says a manual pick always overrides automatic selection for that item and never changes back on its own. For subtitles you download through Plex's on-demand search, the Hearing Impaired Subtitle (SDH) Searches setting has Prefer non-SDH subtitles as the default and an Only show non-SDH subtitles option. If you keep subtitle files next to your videos, Plex recognizes SDH files by an sdh or cc tag in the name, such as Avatar (2009).en.sdh.srt, so name the clean copy without the tag.
VLC
Open the Subtitle menu while the video plays. VLC's subtitle documentation says the menu lists the available tracks; pick the non-SDH one, or choose Disable to turn subtitles off.
Phones, TVs and streaming boxes
A device-level setting can make every app choose SDH when a title has it. On an iPhone, Apple's iPhone guide says to turn on Closed Captions + SDH under Settings > Accessibility > Subtitles & Captioning if you prefer SDH, so turn it off if you don't. Apple TV 4K has the same switch, named Closed Captions and SDH.
On Roku, Roku's captions article offers Captions mode Off, On always, On replay and On mute, and you can change it mid-show with the Star button. Roku notes that Netflix, Hulu and Sling TV control captions inside their own apps, where the Roku setting has no effect, so change those in the app's own menu. On a Samsung TV, Samsung's UK guide puts the switch under Settings > All Settings > General & Privacy > Accessibility > Caption Settings.
When nothing turns it off
If the sound labels stay on whatever you choose, they may be part of the picture. Samsung's guide puts it plainly: open captions are part of the video and can't be turned on or off. No player setting removes burned-in text; you need a different copy of the video. The difference is explained in open captions vs closed captions.
As a file owner: strip SDH text from an SRT
Here is what a typical clean-up does to four cues:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| [TENSE MUSIC PLAYING] | Cue removed |
| JOHN: Where were you last night? | Where were you last night? |
| (sighs) I was at the station. | I was at the station. |
| ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ | Removed, unless the lyrics matter |
In the browser: the SRT cleaner
Open the SRT cleaner, add your file and download the cleaned SRT. It removes SDH tags such as [MUSIC] and (laughs), speaker labels, HTML tags such as italics, music notes and the empty cues left behind. The file is read in your browser and isn't uploaded. Read through the result once before you use it. If a few lines need a hand edit afterwards, the SRT editor lets you change cue text and timings in the browser too.
On the desktop: Subtitle Edit
Subtitle Edit (free and open source; 5.3.0 is the latest stable release, from 14 October 2026) has the most detailed version of this tool. Its Remove text for hearing impaired documentation lists these options under Tools > Remove text for hearing impaired...:
- Remove text between square brackets, curly brackets, parentheses or custom characters, with Only on separate lines to limit it to tags on a line of their own.
- Remove text before colon for speaker labels like JOHN:, with Only if text is uppercase so ordinary sentences containing a colon survive.
- If line is uppercase removes whole uppercase lines, with a whitelist for words like NASA that shouldn't count.
- If line contains removes lines containing text you specify.
- If line only contains music symbols removes lines that are nothing but notes.
- Remove interjections removes words like "hmm" and "uh", using a list for the selected language that you can edit.
Every proposed change appears in a Before and After list, and you can untick any row before applying.
What to check after cleaning
- Shouted dialogue. A rule that removes all-uppercase lines also removes "STOP!" when a character yells it. Use the whitelist or untick those rows.
- Colons in real sentences. "Rule one: never look back." loses its first two words to a speaker-label rule unless you limit it to uppercase labels.
- Parentheses in dialogue. Some subtitlers put whispered asides in parentheses. Read what the preview removes.
- Lyrics that carry the story. A song a character sings on purpose is dialogue. Keep it.
- Leftover dashes and empty cues. Removing a speaker's sound tag can leave a lone "-" or a cue with no text, which shows as a blank flash on screen.
Why SDH exists, and when to keep it
SDH and closed captions exist for people who can't hear the audio. The W3C's accessibility guidance on captions describes them as a text version of the speech and the non-speech audio needed to understand the content, used by people who are Deaf and others who can't hear the audio, and also by people who take in written information better than sound. The doorbell that makes a character freeze, music that turns menacing, a voice from another room: without the labels, a deaf viewer misses those moments. Captions also get wide everyday use: Netflix said in 2025 that nearly half of US viewing hours on its service happen with subtitles or captions on.
So strip SDH from your own copy if it gets in your way, but don't replace the original. If you share or publish the video, keep the SDH file and add the clean one as a second option, for example video.en.srt and video.en.sdh.srt, so each viewer can choose. The conventions for writing good SDH are in the guide to captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.
CapsAI makes a different kind of caption: it transcribes the speech in your video and burns the captions into one MP4. It doesn't add speaker names or sound labels on its own, and it can't open or clean an SRT file. If a sound matters to your video, type it into the caption, such as [laughs], in the browser editor before you export.
What to do next
If you're watching, open the subtitle menu and pick the dialogue-only track, then check your device's Closed Captions + SDH or captions setting. If you have the file, run it through the SRT cleaner, read the result once, and keep the original SDH version alongside it.
