Alison Workspace: Captions
Live subtitles & translation
Only for Mac
Free · In‑App Purchases
Mac
Your first 120 minutes are free. Turn any call, video, or podcast playing on your Mac into live bilingual subtitles, recognized and translated on device.
Alison Workspace sits in your menu bar and captions whatever your Mac is playing — video calls, YouTube, podcasts, recorded meetings, movies, online courses, livestreams. The original text appears on one line with the translation right beneath it, in a floating window that stays on top of everything else. It can also caption your microphone, and it turns audio and video files into editable transcripts.
WHAT IT LISTENS TO
- The sound your Mac is playing — the default
- Your microphone, when you choose it: an in-person conversation, a lecture, your own voice
- Both at once, labeled by source and shown side by side — for example the other side of a call and you
The microphone is used only when you choose it; the default mode never asks for it.
THE SUBTITLE WINDOW
- Bilingual by design: source language on top, translation underneath
- Floats above any app; drag and resize it
- Click-through mode sends clicks to the app underneath
- Set the font, size, color, background, and line spacing
- Global keyboard shortcuts
SENTENCES, NOT FRAGMENTS
Lines stay continuous instead of being chopped up mid-thought. The live translation grows along with the sentence and settles once the sentence ends.
FILE TRANSCRIPTION
- Add audio or video files and get a transcript with timestamps
- Separate speakers automatically, or say how many people are talking
- Play the original audio with the current line highlighted — word by word in English
- Edit lines, rename speakers, translate the whole transcript
- Export as SRT, VTT, TXT, Markdown, CSV, or PDF
PRECISE CHINESE RECOGNITION
An optional on-device Chinese engine, downloaded once (about 800 MB for both modes): Mandarin with hot-word support, or a dialect mode for Cantonese, Sichuanese, Wu and more.
LANGUAGES
- 100 spoken languages recognized; Auto Detect picks the language as you listen and follows when it changes
- Translation targets come from the Apple language resources installed on your Mac — up to 21 on a current system
- The app's interface ships in 16 languages
PRIVACY AND OFFLINE USE
Recognition and translation run on-device. No account, no sign-up, and your audio is never uploaded or saved: only text is kept, in a local history you can search, export, or delete. Language packs and optional models download once, when you first need them; after that everything runs on your Mac.
YOUR VOCABULARY
Add names and jargon to the custom dictionary, and use hot words to bias recognition toward the terms you expect.
REQUIREMENTS
- macOS 15 or later
- Apple silicon only — Intel Macs are not supported
- System audio recording permission to caption what your Mac plays; microphone permission only if you choose microphone input
GOOD TO KNOW
- Subtitles stop while the display is asleep, because macOS stops delivering system audio then.
- When captioning playback and your microphone together, wear headphones so the microphone does not pick up the playback.
- The subtitles are text only; it does not burn them into video files.
FREE TRIAL
Every new user gets 120 minutes of free live captioning and 60 minutes of free file transcription. The live timer only runs while subtitles are actually being produced. After that, a Pro plan keeps both going.
PRO PLANS
- Alison Workspace Pro Monthly — 1 month — $4.99, auto-renewing
- Alison Workspace Pro Annual — 1 year — $29.99, auto-renewing
- Alison Workspace Pro Lifetime — $39.99, a one-time purchase, not a subscription
Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. A subscription renews automatically for the same period unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the current period ends. Subscriptions can be managed or canceled in Settings > your name > Subscriptions.
Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Privacy Policy: https://alisonworkspace.com/legal/privacy.html
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
What's new in 1.1.1
• Live subtitles no longer repeat the same sentence over and over during long, uninterrupted speech — and neither do the translations.
• If a language needs a speech recognition model you haven't downloaded yet, Model Management opens with a Download Model button, instead of a startup error.
• Microphone captions now pick up a normal speaking volume in languages recognized by the downloaded model, such as Arabic.
• Interface text that appeared in Chinese in other languages is now translated.
• Auto Detect uses less memory during long silences.
• Other fixes and improvements.
The developer, 小朋 王, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- 小朋 王
- Size
- 16.6 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- Mac
- Languages
English and 15 more
- English, Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Vietnamese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Pro Monthly $4.99
- Pro Annual $29.99
- Pro Lifetime $39.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 XiaoPeng Wang