Free YouTube to Transcript
Paste a YouTube link, get the transcript as text. Free, no sign-up.
Search it, copy it, or download TXT, SRT and VTT.
One video at a time · No signup · Copy or download instantly
What you get from a YouTube video
YouTube2Transcript turns one public YouTube video into readable text. It reads the video’s own caption track, whether the creator wrote it or YouTube generated it, cleans up the caption fragments into sentences, and shows the result under the video. You can search inside it, toggle timestamps, copy the whole thing, or download it as a TXT, SRT or VTT file. No account, no card, no watermark.
How to get a YouTube transcript in three steps
- Copy the video link from YouTube. Watch links, share links and Shorts links all work.
- Paste it above and press Get transcript. Captioned videos usually appear in a few seconds.
- Search, copy with or without timestamps, or download the file you need.
Try it here
One video at a time · No signup · Copy or download instantly
Which file to download
- TXT is plain text, one line per caption, for notes, documents and pasting into ChatGPT, Claude or NotebookLM.
- SRT keeps the start and end time of every line, for video editors and re-uploading captions.
- VTT is the web caption format for HTML5 players and browser extensions.
Languages and timestamps
The tool returns English captions when the video has them, and otherwise the caption track the video does have: a Spanish video with only Spanish captions gives you Spanish text. It does not translate. Timestamps can be switched on when you need to quote a moment and off when you want clean reading text, and the copied text follows the switch.
Why read instead of watch
A one-hour lecture is a ten-minute read. Transcripts make a video searchable, quotable and easy to skim, and they are the fastest way to give an AI assistant the content of a video: paste the text into ChatGPT, Claude or NotebookLM and ask for a summary, a study guide, or the three points that matter. Students, researchers, journalists and people who prefer reading all use it the same way.
What it cannot do
If a video has no captions at all, there is nothing to read and the tool says so rather than inventing text. Private and members-only videos are not reachable. And this page handles one video at a time by design: for a whole playlist or channel, or for hundreds of videos in one file, use BulkTranscripts, which is built by the same team for exactly that.
FAQ
Is YouTube to Transcript free to use?⌄
Yes. Paste one public YouTube video and get the transcript without an account or credit card. Fair-use limits keep the free service running for everyone. For 100+ videos, a channel or a playlist, use BulkTranscripts.
How do I get the transcript of a YouTube video?⌄
Copy the video link from YouTube, paste it into the box above and press Get transcript. The text appears below the video within a few seconds when the video has captions.
Does it work on YouTube Shorts?⌄
Yes. Paste a Shorts link (youtube.com/shorts/…) exactly like a regular video link. If the Short has a caption track, including an auto-generated one, you get its transcript with timestamps.
Does it work on videos without captions?⌄
No. The tool reads the caption track YouTube already has for the video, so a video with captions disabled and no auto-generated track returns nothing. It does not generate speech-to-text.
Can I download the transcript as SRT or TXT?⌄
Yes. Download clean text as TXT, or timed captions as SRT or VTT. Copy also works with timestamps on or off.
Can I get the transcript in another language?⌄
The tool returns English captions when the video has them. Otherwise it returns the caption language the video does have, so a Spanish video with only Spanish captions gives you Spanish text. It does not translate.
Is there a limit on video length?⌄
Long videos work as long as YouTube provides captions. A three-hour podcast takes a little longer to load than a ten-minute clip, that is all.
Can I get transcripts for a whole channel or playlist?⌄
Not on this page, which handles one video at a time. Paste a playlist or channel link and it points you to BulkTranscripts, built by the same team, which pulls every video's transcript into one download.
Do you offer a YouTube transcript API?⌄
Yes, through BulkTranscripts: a REST API and a hosted MCP server that handle channels, playlists and large collections, with 30 free credits to start.