YouTube Transcript Downloader
Download any YouTube video transcript as TXT, SRT, VTT or JSON. 100+ languages, auto-generated and manual captions, timestamped or plain text. Free, no signup.
Why download a YouTube transcript?
YouTube hides transcripts behind a three-click menu that most viewers never find. For creators, researchers, students, journalists and content marketers, that friction is the biggest barrier between them and the value locked inside video content. Our YouTube transcript downloader removes the friction.
Once you have a transcript as a file, you can search it, summarise it with AI, quote it in an article, translate it, repurpose it into a blog post, or turn a 60-minute podcast into Twitter threads in 10 minutes. Text is infinitely more workable than video.
Transcripts are the unlock for modern content workflows. AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini can process hours of video content in seconds — but only if you give them the text, not the video.
Every supported format explained
- TXT — plain text. Best for AI processing, blog writing, summarisation, research notes. Strips timestamps for clean reading.
- SRT — SubRip subtitles. Industry-standard subtitle format used by video editors, streaming platforms, translators. Includes timestamps and sequence numbers.
- VTT — WebVTT. HTML5 video standard for closed captions. Use for embedding captions in web video players.
- JSON with timestamps. Structured data for developers building transcript search, indexing tools, or chapter generators.
- Copy to clipboard. Fastest way to paste into Notion, Google Docs, Claude, ChatGPT.
100+ languages supported
YTTools supports every language YouTube provides, including: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French, Arabic, German, Japanese, Russian, Indonesian, Korean, Turkish, Italian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Vietnamese, Polish, Dutch, Thai, Swedish, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Malay, Tagalog, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and many more.
For videos with multiple available languages, you can pick which track to download. For videos with only one language, we offer auto-translation to your target language via YouTube's native translation API.
How to use the transcript downloader
- Copy the URL of any public YouTube video.
- Paste it into the input above.
- Choose your language if multiple are available.
- Click Extract — the transcript appears in seconds.
- Download as TXT, SRT, VTT or JSON, or copy to clipboard.
The extractor works with long videos (we have tested up to 12 hours), shorts, live replays, and videos with manual or auto-generated captions.
Top use cases for a YouTube transcript downloader
- Blog post from podcast.Download a podcast transcript, run it through Claude with "turn this into a 2000-word blog post", publish in 20 minutes.
- Research paper citations. Quote exact phrases from educational videos with timestamps for citation.
- Study notes. Students download lecture transcripts, highlight and summarise faster than watching.
- Content repurposing. One long video becomes 5 Twitter threads, 10 LinkedIn posts, 1 newsletter, 3 short-form scripts.
- Accessibility. Create caption files (SRT/VTT) for your own re-uploads or for hearing-impaired audiences.
- Language learning. Read along with native-speaker videos to improve comprehension.
- AI summarisation. Feed the transcript to Claude or ChatGPT and ask for a 300-word summary, key quotes, or action items.
Read our guide on creative uses for YouTube transcripts for more ideas.
Auto-generated vs manual transcripts
YouTube produces transcripts in two ways. Manual transcripts are uploaded by the creator and are usually near-perfect. Auto-generated transcripts are produced by YouTube's speech-to-text model and are good but imperfect — they miss punctuation, struggle with proper nouns, and occasionally mistranscribe technical terms.
Our downloader works with both. When both are available, we default to the manual transcript because it is higher quality. For videos where only auto-generated captions exist, we return those. Accuracy in 2026 is typically 90-95% for clear English audio and 85-90% for other major languages.
Other YouTube tools you might need
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- Title & description generator — AI-powered
- Hashtag generator — trending hashtags
Frequently asked questions
Is this YouTube transcript downloader free?
Yes. 100% free, no signup, no rate limit, no watermark.
What formats can I download?
TXT, SRT, VTT, JSON with timestamps, and copy-to-clipboard.
Does the downloader work with auto-generated captions?
Yes. Both manual and auto-generated captions in 100+ languages.
Can I translate the transcript to another language?
Yes. When available, we offer YouTube's auto-translation for 100+ target languages.
What videos are not supported?
Private, unlisted, age-restricted without captions, and a small number of videos where creators disabled transcripts.