A local-first workstation for bilingual subtitles and AI dubbing. Run local workflows offline after preparing models and runtimes, with optional cloud services.
🇺🇸 English | 🇨🇳 中文版
If you've ever tried to subtitle or dub a video, you know the drill:
- Online SaaS tools charge you per minute. You run out of free credits in a blink, and uploading GBs of video to external servers exposes your unreleased or private footage.
- Traditional open-source scripts require you to be a command-line magician. Installing Python, managing Conda virtual environments, compiling C++ libraries, and handling FFmpeg configurations is a recipe for errors.
- The Workflow is Broken. You transcribe in one app, translate in a browser, generate voice in another script, and use Premiere or hand-coded FFmpeg to merge them.
FinalSub changes everything. It is a native, pre-compiled desktop workstation that puts a complete AI production studio on your local machine. No subscription. No cloud uploads. No command-line setup.
| 😭 Without FinalSub | 😎 With FinalSub |
|---|---|
| SaaS Bills Drain Your Wallet: Paying per-minute transcription & translation fees. Heavy creators waste hundreds of dollars a month. | No local API metering: Use your Mac's GPU/CPU and Ollama for local translation. The app is free; optional cloud services follow their provider pricing. |
| Leaking Intellectual Property: Uploading corporate videos, confidential interviews, or private vlogs to remote servers. | A fully local workflow is available: Local ASR, Ollama translation and local TTS process content on your device. Cloud services send the relevant audio or text to the selected provider. |
| Terminal & Dependency Hell: Installing Python, Homebrew, CUDA, CMake, and Hugging Face dependencies just to run a model. | Just Unzip & Run: Pre-packaged universal binaries and FFmpeg sidecars. No terminal setups. No CLI errors. |
| Hallucinating Subtitles: AI translations shift line numbers, drop timestamps, and break sync. | JSON Schema Locked: Translation lines are strictly mapped and aligned with glossaries automatically. |
| Cluttered App Switching: Bouncing between transcribers, translator tabs, TTS scripts, and video editors. | Unified AI Workstation: Extraction ➔ Transcription ➔ AI Translation ➔ Proofread ➔ AI Dubbing ➔ Composition in one interface. |
Run state-of-the-art ASR (Whisper.cpp, SenseVoice, Paraformer) and TTS (Kokoro, VITS, ZipVoice) locally. Whisper.cpp is fully optimized for macOS Metal GPU acceleration for blazing-fast transcription. Deep integration with local Ollama lets you translate subtitles for free using models like DeepSeek-R1 or Qwen—offline after the model and runtime are ready, with no API key required. Parakeet MLX requires uv and Python dependencies; the model page checks runtime readiness and provides setup, cancellation and retry. Local TTS also requires its model files.
Say goodbye to broken subtitle files caused by LLM hallucinations. FinalSub locks your subtitle structure using strict JSON Schemas. It automatically scans your text against custom Terminology Glossaries, injects context-aware term hints, and matches source-echo similarities. If a translation drifts, it retries and repairs only the affected cues.
Go from raw footage to a finished master in minutes. FinalSub features a timeline-linked visual subtitle proofreader. Once proofread, generate timing-aware TTS voiceovers (supporting auto-ducking to lower source volume under dubs). Finally, burn hard subtitles (fully customizable styling) or package soft subtitles into MKV files using built-in high-performance FFmpeg sidecars.
No Python setup is required for the bundled Native engines. On Apple Silicon,
Parakeet MLX V2 can optionally reuse an existing local cache through uv.
- Download: Grab the macOS Universal DMG/App from our Releases Page.
- Import: Drag in your video, audio, or existing subtitle file.
- Run: Choose the deliverable, confirm the language and subtitle content, then click "Start processing".
That's it. Watch your high-quality, translated subtitles render in real-time.
The current macOS download uses FinalSub's pinned self-signed certificate while Apple Developer ID distribution is pending. macOS therefore requires manual approval when a newly downloaded build is first opened. Follow the self-signed macOS install guide; never install a root certificate or disable Gatekeeper.
- 🎬 Content Creators & YouTubers: Localize your videos into multiple languages without paying hundreds of dollars to online SaaS platforms.
- 🧑💻 Developers & Tech Teams: Protect your source files and build automated subtitle pipelines locally using reusable task recipes.
- 🔐 Privacy-First Professionals: Translate and transcribe confidential interviews, corporate presentations, and legal depositions in a completely air-gapped environment.
- 🎓 Educators & Researchers: Turn lectures and course materials into bilingual videos with guided model and runtime setup.
- Desktop Framework: Tauri 2.0 (Rust-powered backend, blazing-fast, avoiding Electron's bloat)
- Frontend UI: React 19 + TypeScript + TailwindCSS 4.0
- Engines: Whisper.cpp (Metal GPU accelerated) + sherpa-onnx + FFmpeg 7.x (Static universal binary sidecar)
- Security: prompt-free encrypted credential vault on macOS; native OS credential stores on Windows and Linux.
- Local workflows process subtitles, audio and video on your machine. Optional cloud services send the corresponding audio or text to your configured endpoint.
- Local models process everything in memory and on disk offline.
- Cloud ASR/TTS require endpoint configuration and explicit upload consent. Cloud ASR segments audio locally with VAD; cloud translation and TTS send text. Optional error telemetry is disabled by default.
- On macOS, secrets are stored in an app-private XChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypted vault with owner-only permissions, avoiding recurring system password prompts. Windows and Linux use their native credential stores. Plaintext secrets are never returned to the front end or written to logs.
Developing and maintaining high-quality universal sidecars, optimizing local engines, and providing a seamless "unzip and run" experience takes thousands of hours. If FinalSub saves you money and time:
- 🌟 Give us a Star on GitHub.
- ☕ Buy us a coffee to fuel our development!
| PayPal | WeChat Sponsor |
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- Early architectural concepts were inspired by the open-source project SmartSub (MIT licensed, Copyright (c) 2024 Lin Xiaodong). Our deepest gratitude!
- Third-party open-source dependency credits can be found in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
- FinalSub is licensed under the MIT License.