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Download a YouTube transcript

Free to try: 5 a day, 15 with a free account. No card needed.

Pro transcripts are always private to your team. Free transcripts of public videos can appear in our public transcript library.

  • No sign-up for 5 a day
  • Pro transcripts stay private
  • TXT, SRT, VTT or JSON

To download a YouTube transcript, paste the video link below and choose Get transcript, then pick TXT, SRT, VTT or JSON and select Download. TXT is plain text, SRT and VTT are subtitle files with timing, and JSON has the start and duration of each line. Videos without captions are transcribed with AI.

How to download a YouTube transcript in 3 steps

  1. Paste the YouTube link above and choose Get transcript.
  2. Pick a format: TXT, SRT, VTT or JSON.
  3. Select Download and open the file.

Example output

The first chunk of a real transcript of a public YouTube video: Build $10,000 Websites using ChatGPT (Ultimate Guide) (Metics Media). The text is shown exactly as stored, including recognition errors. This video has captions uploaded by its creator, which is why the text has punctuation. Auto-generated captions usually do not.

output.txt
Welcome to the ultimate guide to building $10,000 websites with Chat GPT. Take a look at these websites. I've built each one of them just using Chat GPT. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to easily build and publish premium websites just like these step-by-step.

Which format to download

  • TXT: the words only, in paragraphs, with no timestamps. Best for reading, quoting and pasting into a document.
  • SRT: numbered cues with start and end times, for video editors. See YouTube to SRT.
  • VTT: the web version of subtitles, for the HTML5 <track> element. See YouTube to VTT.
  • JSON: the start time and duration of every line, for scripts and spreadsheets.

Download transcripts of many videos

The web tool handles one video per request. To download the transcripts of a list of videos, use the bulk transcript downloader. To fetch them from code, use the YouTube transcript API.

Limits you should know

  • Without an account you get 5 transcripts per 24 hours (up to 1 of them AI-transcribed); a free account gets 15 (up to 3 AI-transcribed). Pro raises this to 100 a day, up to 30 of them AI-transcribed. Videos already transcribed on TubeTranscript don't count toward these limits.
  • Pro transcripts are always private to your team. Free transcripts of public videos can appear in our public transcript library.
  • Captions and speech recognition contain mistakes, especially in names, numbers and noisy audio. Auto-generated captions often have no punctuation.
  • Private, removed and region-restricted videos cannot be processed. Audio transcription is not available for live streams in progress, or for videos longer than 30 minutes on the free plan and 2 hours on Pro.

Free account

15 transcripts per 24 hours instead of 5. No card needed.

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Pro

100 transcripts per 24 hours, 30 AI transcriptions for videos without captions with enhanced quality, API and MCP access.

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FAQ

Is the transcript download free?

Yes. Guests get 5 transcripts per 24 hours and a free account gets 15. Pro transcripts are always private to your team. Free transcripts of public videos can appear in our public transcript library.

Which file formats can I download?

TXT, SRT, VTT and JSON. Choose the format before you select Download.

Does the file include timestamps?

SRT, VTT and JSON do. TXT never does.

Can I download a transcript when the video has no captions?

Often, yes. The audio is transcribed with AI, which takes longer; see transcribing a video with no captions. Guests can do this for up to 1 video per 24 hours.

By Kenji Saito · Updated