# gt: General Translation CLI tool: SRT
URL: https://generaltranslation.com/en-GB/docs/cli/reference/formats/srt-files.mdx
Docs index: https://generaltranslation.com/llms.txt
Description: Translate SubRip subtitle files with the General Translation CLI. API reference for the SRT file format.

The CLI translates cue text in SubRip (`.srt`) subtitle files while preserving cue numbers, timestamps, separators and markup. Support requires `gt` 2.22.2 or later.

## Overview [#overview]

| Topic                              | Description                                                         |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Configuration](#config)           | Match source and translated `.srt` paths.                           |
| [Translation behaviour](#behavior) | Preserve cue numbers, timing lines, separators and subtitle markup. |
| [Encoding](#encoding)              | Decode and restore byte-order-marked text encodings.                |
| [Validation](#validation)          | Skip empty files and reject documents without a valid cue.          |

## Configuration [#config]

Add an `srt` entry under `files` with an `include` array of glob patterns. Use the `[locale]` placeholder so that the CLI can find source files and save translations to the corresponding locale path.

```json title="gt.config.json"
{
  "defaultLocale": "en",
  "locales": ["es", "fr"],
  "files": {
    "srt": {
      "include": ["subtitles/[locale]/**/*.srt"]
    }
  }
}
```

With this config, source subtitles come from `subtitles/en/`, and translated subtitles are saved under `subtitles/es/` and `subtitles/fr/`. Use [`transform`](/docs/cli/reference/config#files) to rename output paths.

SRT supports only an `SRT` output format; it cannot be converted to another file format with `transformationFormat`. See the [configuration reference](/docs/cli/reference/config#files) for the shared file keys.

## Translation behaviour [#behavior]

Only cue text is translated. The pipeline keeps these parts of the source document unchanged:

* Cue numbers
* Start and end timestamps, including position data
* Blank-line separators and content outside valid cues
* Subtitle markup such as `<i>`, `<b>`, `<u>`, `<font>`, and leading `{\an1}`–`{\an9}` position tags

Translated lines use the cue&#39;s detected source line ending, while untouched separators remain unchanged. Existing translations for unchanged cues can be reused unless you force retranslation.

## Encoding [#encoding]

The CLI reads unmarked SRT files as UTF-8. When a file starts with a byte order mark, it supports UTF-8, UTF-16 little-endian or big-endian, and UTF-32 little-endian or big-endian. Downloaded translations use the source file&#39;s encoding and byte order mark.

An unmarked UTF-16 or UTF-32 file is treated as UTF-8. Add the appropriate byte order mark or save it as UTF-8 before translating.

## Validation [#validation]

The CLI skips an empty SRT file and reports it in the command summary. The API requires at least one cue with a valid timing line. Blocks without a valid timing line remain unchanged and are not translated.

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](https://generaltranslation.com/sitemap.md) for all pages.