A photo says a lot, but sometimes it needs a few words to go with it - who’s in it, where it was taken, or what year it was. If you want to add captions to a photo slideshow on your Mac, this guide shows you how to do it in a few minutes: show details that are already stored in your photos, write your own caption for any photo or video, and style everything so it looks good on a TV or projector.

Why add captions to a slideshow?

Captions turn a stream of photos into a story. A few examples of where they make a real difference:

• Memorials and celebrations of life - names, places, and years help guests place each memory
• Weddings and anniversaries - “Our first date, 2014” or “Honeymoon in Lisbon” gets a smile every time
• Family photo nights - no more “wait, when was this?” in the middle of the slideshow
• Photography review - see the camera, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for every shot
• Big photo archives - showing the folder name tells you which trip or event a photo comes from

If you’ve tried to do this with Apple’s Photos app, you’ve probably noticed its slideshows don’t give you a simple way to show a caption on each photo. The usual workaround is editing text onto every image in another app first - slow, and it permanently changes your photos.

Since version 4.11, Slideshower lets you add captions directly to your slideshow, without touching the original files.

What can a slideshow caption show?

You can combine any of these fields, in any order:

Capture date, camera, and lens settings come from the information your camera or phone already saved in the photo, so you don’t have to type anything. For videos, you can show your own caption, the filename, folder name, and date.

How to add captions to a photo slideshow on Mac

Step 1: Add your photos and videos

Open Slideshower and drag a folder (or several) into the window, or click “Select files or folders”. If the folder has subfolders, Slideshower asks whether to include them too. If you’re new to this part, the guide on playing a slideshow from a folder on Mac covers it in detail.

Step 2: Choose what your captions show

1. Click Advanced Options and open the Captions tab
2. Under Fields and Order, click Add Field and pick what you want - for example User caption and Capture date
3. Use the up and down arrows to change the order, and the minus button to remove a field

By default, captions show the filename without its extension - so if that’s all you need, you can skip this step.

Step 3: Write your own caption for a photo or video (optional)

1. Right-click any photo or video in the main window
2. Choose “Add Caption…”
3. Type your caption and click Save Caption

Files with a caption get a small badge, so you can quickly see which ones you’ve already done. To change a caption, right-click and choose “Edit Caption…”. You can also clear one caption, or select several files and clear all their captions at once.

Important: make sure User caption is one of your caption fields (Step 2) - otherwise your text won’t appear during the slideshow.

Step 4: Style your captions

In the same Captions tab you can adjust how captions look:

• Layout - show all fields on one line (separated by a dot) or as stacked lines
• Date format - Year only, 27 February 2015, February 27, 2015, 2015-02-27, or your Mac’s system format
• Font, size, and color - any font installed on your Mac, from 8 to 72 pt
• Position - top or bottom, on the left, center, or right
• Background - none, a subtle shadow, or a dark pill behind the text
• Margin and opacity - move captions away from the edge and make them more or less transparent

Step 5: Start the slideshow and press “i”

Captions are hidden when a slideshow starts, so you choose when to show them. Press i on your keyboard to show captions, and press it again to hide them. That makes it easy to watch the photos on their own, then bring up the details when someone asks “where was this?”

Step 6: Save your slideshow

Your own captions are stored in the slideshow, not in the photo files. Use File → Save Slideshow (Cmd+S) to save everything as a .slideshow file - photos, music, settings, and captions. Next time, just open that file and your captions are back.

Tips for great slideshow captions

• Keep them short - a slideshow moves on after a few seconds, so a few words work better than a full sentence
• Use “Year only” for life stories - for memorials, birthdays, or anniversaries, a year is often all the context people need
• Watch out for scanned prints - a scanned photo’s date is usually the day you scanned it, not the day it was taken. Write the year in your own caption instead
• Pick “Dark pill” for bright photos - it keeps white text readable on snow, sky, and beach photos, and on projectors in bright rooms
• Go bigger for TVs - text that looks fine on your MacBook can be tiny from across the room. Try a larger font size before the event
• Add the folder name to shuffled slideshows - when photos from many trips play in random order, the folder name tells everyone where each one is from. Here’s how to shuffle photos in a slideshow on Mac
• Test before the big day - run the slideshow once and check that the captions are readable and don’t cover anything important

Things to know

• Captions appear in single-photo view. They’re not shown in the side-by-side, 2x2, or 3x3 grid views.
• Captions aren’t included in video export. They’re shown only while the slideshow plays in Slideshower.
• Captions and overlays can be used together. If you also use an image or text overlay (for example your logo) in the same corner, Slideshower moves the caption so they don’t overlap.

FAQ

Can I add a caption to a video, not just a photo? Yes. Right-click any video in Slideshower and choose “Add Caption…” - it works the same way as for photos.

Can Slideshower show the date a photo was taken? Yes. Add the Capture date field in Advanced Options → Captions and pick a date format. The date is read from the photo’s metadata. If a file doesn’t have one, Slideshower uses the file’s creation date.

Does Slideshower change my photos when I add captions? No. Captions are shown on top of your photos during the slideshow. Your original files are never edited.

Can Slideshower show captions I wrote in the Photos app or Lightroom? Not at the moment - the User caption field shows captions you write in Slideshower. If you’d like this, let me know - many features in Slideshower started as user requests, including captions.

Why don’t I see captions during my slideshow? Captions are hidden when a slideshow starts - press i to show them. Also check that you’re using single-photo view and that at least one field is added in Advanced Options → Captions.

Get started

Captions are a great finishing touch for a memorial slideshow, a wedding slideshow, or just a relaxed evening of family photos. Download Slideshower for free (up to 150 photos) and add your first caption in under a minute. For unlimited photos, a one-time license is $19 - no subscriptions.

Captions were one of the most requested features - thank you to everyone who asked for them! If you have ideas for making them even better, drop me a line at hello@slideshower.com.

Best, Pawel