Google Drive to Shotstack Burned-In Subtitles (n8n Workflow)

Google Drive → Shotstack captioned MP4 (burned-in subtitles) automation for n8n

This n8n workflow watches a Google Drive folder for new videos, sends them to Shotstack to transcribe the speech, then returns an HD MP4 with burned-in subtitles back to Google Drive—no separate transcription service and no manual subtitle editing.

What this workflow does

• Monitors your Google Drive folder every minute for newly added video files.
• Ensures Shotstack can access each file by setting the video sharing to “anyone with the link can view”.
• Sends the video to Shotstack to transcribe and render a captioned HD MP4 with open captions burned into the picture.
• Checks render status every 10 seconds until Shotstack finishes.
• Downloads the completed captioned video when done.
• Uploads the captioned output back to Google Drive, adding (captioned) to the filename.
• If the render fails, the workflow stops and reports Shotstack’s own failure reason.

Use cases

• Captioning customer webinars or internal training videos uploaded to Drive.
• Automated turnaround for SaaS media ops teams who need accessibility-friendly videos.
• Fast subtitle generation for marketing clips—without exporting to a separate transcription tool.

Technical details

• Google Drive integration (watch folder + upload rendered output).
• Shotstack integration via HTTP requests (render submission + status polling).
• Workflow control includes: if, wait, stop, and error handling (reports Shotstack’s reason on failure).
• Recommended setup: use a separate output folder in Google Drive to avoid the workflow re-triggering on its own results.

Setup checklist

Connect your Google credentials, select the input folder, and connect your Shotstack credentials (a free Sandbox key is enough to test; Sandbox renders include a watermark). Then run once on a short clip to confirm subtitle results before processing real videos.