YouTube Subtitles Downloader

A subtitles downloader extracts the caption track from a YouTube video and exports it as a file you can open in a subtitle editor, embed in another video, translate, or use as research material. YouTube does not offer a built-in download option for most users — this is the gap free tools fill.

YTTools supports every caption track YouTube exposes: creator-uploaded human subtitles, auto-generated subtitles, and translated subtitles in over 100 languages.

• SRT (SubRip) — the universal subtitle format, works in every video player and editor.
• VTT (WebVTT) — the modern web standard, used in HTML5 video and streaming platforms.
• TXT — plain text with timestamps stripped, useful for search and archiving.
• JSON — machine-readable with per-word timings, useful for developers and AI pipelines.

Every format is generated in real time from the same underlying caption data so there is no quality loss.

1. Copy the URL of any YouTube video.
2. Paste it into the YTTools subtitles downloader.
3. Select the language you want — we detect every available track.
4. Pick your format: SRT, VTT, TXT, or JSON.
5. Click Download. The file hits your downloads folder in seconds.

If the creator has uploaded subtitles in multiple languages, you can download all of them. If only auto-generated subtitles exist, the tool uses those.

• Research: search and quote from long-form content without re-watching.
• Translation: generate translated subtitles for your own video or for reference.
• Accessibility: provide captions on a re-upload or mirror.
• Transcription services: save hours of manual transcription.
• Content creation: repurpose long videos into blog posts, tweets, newsletter excerpts.
• Language learning: study dialogue side-by-side with audio.
• AI training: feed transcripts into summarisation, embeddings, or RAG pipelines.

Subtitles are timed captions that match the spoken audio, usually shown line-by-line during playback. A transcript is the same text without the timing — often a single continuous document. YTTools lets you download either.

For most research, the plain-text transcript is more useful. For video editing, translation, or accessibility, the SRT or VTT with timestamps is essential.

See our full YouTube transcript downloader for the transcript-focused workflow.

Subtitles are text created by the creator (or auto-generated by YouTube) and fall under the creator's copyright. Using them for research, commentary, review, and translation typically falls within fair use. Republishing them commercially without permission does not.

If you are using subtitles to repurpose content, always credit the original creator and link back to the source video. The text belongs to the creator; YTTools is just the tool.