How to turn off auto-dubbing on your YouTube channel

Your English video has a Spanish or Hindi audio track you never recorded. That’s YouTube’s automatic dubbing. Here’s how to turn off auto-dubbing on your YouTube channel, check dubs before they go live, and take down the ones already published.

Where is the auto-dubbing switch?

The switch sits in a different place on a computer and in the app. These paths come from YouTube’s help pages, as of October 2026.

Why your videos got dubbed without you asking

Automatic dubbing makes translated audio tracks for your videos. YouTube’s automatic dubbing page says: “This feature is enabled by default for eligible creators.” So if your channel is eligible and you never changed the setting, it’s on.

When you upload, YouTube makes the dubs and publishes them based on your settings. It may also dub videos you published before. Dubbed videos say auto-dubbed in the description.

As of October 2026, YouTube can dub English videos into 20 languages. Videos in most other languages get an English dub only.

YouTube may skip videos that:

• run longer than 120 minutes
• have no speech, only music, or very little talking
• are in a language it doesn’t support, or one it can’t detect
• have speech so fast the dub would sound sped up
• contain copyrighted content

How to turn off auto-dubbing on your YouTube channel

On a computer

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. Click Settings, then Channel, then Advanced settings.
3. Uncheck Allow automatic dubbing.
4. Click Save.

To turn it back on later, check the same box and click Save.

In the YouTube Studio app

1. Open the YouTube Studio app and tap your profile picture.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Under Content, tap Automatic dubbing.
4. Turn automatic dubbing off.

YouTube gives the same steps for Android and for iPhone and iPad.

How to review dubs before they go live

Want dubs, but only ones you’ve checked? Keep the feature on and switch it to review.

• On a computer: in Settings, Channel, Advanced settings, keep Allow automatic dubbing checked. Then check Manually review dubs before publishing and click Save.
• In the Studio app: on the Automatic dubbing screen, tap Publish manually.

From then on, dubs wait for you. You can only preview and publish them in YouTube Studio on a computer:

1. Click Content, then the video, then Languages.
2. In the Language column, click the dub’s language.
3. In the Preview menu under the video, pick that language and play it.
4. If it sounds right, publish it with the steps below.

How to unpublish or delete a dub on a computer

YouTube’s page doesn’t say that turning the feature off removes dubs that are already live. To take down an auto-dubbed audio track, use YouTube Studio on a computer. The app can’t do it.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio on your computer.
2. Click Content, then the video.
3. Click Languages.
4. Hover over the language, then click the down arrow in the Audio column.
5. Choose Publish, Unpublish or Delete.

You can’t edit an automatic dub. If one is wrong, unpublish it: viewers stop hearing it, and you can republish it later. Delete is permanent.

Here’s a made-up example. You post a 15-minute cooking video in English. Say the Spanish dub mispronounces “Worcestershire sauce”. YouTube’s page warns that dubs can struggle with proper nouns, idioms and jargon.

Before: the Spanish dub is live, and your next uploads get dubbed and published without your review.

After:

1. On a computer, open Content, the video, then Languages.
2. Next to Spanish, click the down arrow in the Audio column and choose Unpublish.
3. In Settings, Channel, Advanced settings, check Manually review dubs before publishing. Click Save.

Spanish viewers stop hearing the bad dub. Your next dubs wait until you preview and publish them.

Same made-up video. After 2 weeks, you decide a dub with one wrong word beats no Spanish dub at all.

If you unpublished it: open the same menu in the Audio column and choose Publish. It’s live again.

If you deleted it: it’s gone for good. YouTube says: “Once a dub is deleted, it won’t be available and you can’t republish it.”

When you might leave it on

YouTube says dubbing is meant to make your videos more accessible to viewers around the world. It may be worth keeping, with review on, if:

• your videos are mostly talking, like tutorials, lessons or recipes
• your videos are in English, which can be dubbed into the most languages (20, as of October 2026)
• you want viewers in other languages but can’t record dubs yourself

Worried your own audience will hear a dub instead of you? If your video’s language is one of a viewer’s preferred languages, YouTube plays them your original audio.

Thinking of dubbing in your own cloned voice instead? YouTube’s AI disclosure page lists “Cloning one’s own voice to create voice overs or dubs” as something you don’t need to disclose. More on whether it’s OK to use an AI voice on YouTube.

Watching, not uploading? How to hear the original audio

YouTube’s viewer help doesn’t describe one switch that turns off auto-dubbing as a viewer. It gives 2 fixes instead.

For one video

1. Open the video.
2. In the player, select Settings.
3. Select Audio track.
4. Choose the language you want.

For every video

Add the languages you speak to your preferred languages. Videos whose original audio is in one of them play in the original, not as a dub.

• On a computer: profile picture → Settings → Playback & Performance → under Language, add or edit languages.
• In the YouTube app: profile picture → Settings → Languages → Preferred languages.

Common mistakes

• Deleting a dub you might want back. Delete can’t be undone. Unpublish first, and delete later only if you’re sure.
• Assuming the off switch removes old dubs. YouTube’s page doesn’t say it does. After you switch it off, open the Languages page of your recent videos and check the Audio column.
• Leaving the video language wrong. YouTube says a wrong original language can cause mistranslated dubs. Fix the video’s language, and YouTube makes the dubs again.
• Following an old menu path. Menus move. If a guide doesn’t match your screen, use YouTube’s page, which has separate Computer, Android, and iPhone and iPad versions.

What to do next

• Today, pick one: switch auto-dubbing off, or switch it to review. Then open the Languages page of your 3 newest videos and check which dubs are live.
• Using AI elsewhere in your videos? Read how YouTube’s AI label works and whether you can monetize AI videos on YouTube.
• Keep track of other YouTube AI changes, with dates, in AI news for creators.