Set the file to "Anyone with the link", paste the link here, and download SRT or VTT. Nothing to download to your computer first, which matters when the video is several gigabytes.
How it works
In Drive, right-click the video, choose Share, and under General access pick "Anyone with the link" as Viewer. Copy the link.
The file is fetched from Drive directly, so a large recording does not pass through your own connection twice.
Download the subtitle file, or use Save to Drive in the download menu to put the transcript and SRT back in your Drive.
When a Drive link fails
About one Drive link in three that people paste cannot be opened, and the cause is nearly always the same: the file is still set to Restricted, so Drive answers with a sign-in page instead of the video. Check these in order:
/folders/ in it; a file link has /file/d/.You can switch the file back to Restricted as soon as the transcript is ready.
Without a public link
If you would rather not open the file to anyone with the link, sign in and use the Google Drive import in your library: you choose the files in Google's own picker and only those files are read. A whole folder of recordings can be imported the same way, which is the practical route for a course or an interview series.
The same connection works in the other direction: Save to Drive in a transcript's download menu writes the text and the SRT next to your other files.
Sample output
1 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:46,500 fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 2 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:50,300 that all men are created equal. 3 00:00:50,300 --> 00:00:57,500 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 4 00:00:57,500 --> 00:01:01,620 and so dedicated, can long endure. 5 00:01:01,620 --> 00:01:07,920 We are met on a great battlefield of that war we have come to dedicate a portion of that field 6 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:14,240 as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that their nation might live 7 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:18,800 it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this
Real output, unedited: a public-domain LibriVox reading of the Gettysburg Address (2 min 41 s) transcribed here in October 2026. The repeated word and the missing capitals are what came back; you would fix those on the transcript before downloading.
Before you rely on it
Each cue is a phrase from the transcript with its start and end time. Most run a few seconds. A passage spoken without a pause can come out as one long cue of up to about half a minute, so split those in your editor if your platform wants two short lines at a time.
Cue times are taken from the recording itself, so the file lines up with the video or audio you uploaded. If you trim the start of the video afterwards, shift the cues by the same amount in your editor.
On public test recordings, about 7 words in 100 differed from the reference for clean English read speech, between 4 and 9 in 100 for Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, French and German, and about 21 in 100 for Hindi. Noisy rooms, music and crosstalk do worse. Method and every number: the benchmark.
Open the transcript, correct a misheard name or number on its line, and the SRT and VTT you download carry the correction with the timing unchanged.
You get the subtitle file. Fonts, colours, position and captions drawn into the picture are done in your video editor or player, which reads this file.
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per recording. The box on this page takes files up to 500 MB; larger ones continue on the upload page. 99+ languages, detected automatically.
Pricing
The preview is free. When the full transcript needs a pack, one-time packs are $4 for 500 minutes, $8 for 1,000 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes, $24 for 5,000 minutes. Credits never expire, which comes to about $0.29 to $0.48 per hour of audio.
| Recording | $4 or $8 pack | $12 pack | $24 pack |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20-minute lesson | $0.16 | $0.12 | $0.10 |
| 1-hour interview | $0.48 | $0.36 | $0.29 |
| 4-hour event recording | $1.92 | $1.44 | $1.15 |
Figures are the share of a pack each recording uses. A button opens secure checkout for that pack. Every export format is included; full details on the pricing page.
FAQ
Share the file as "Anyone with the link", paste the link into the box on this page, and download SRT or VTT from the transcript when it is ready.
Usually the file is still Restricted, so Drive shows a sign-in page instead of the file. Change General access to "Anyone with the link", or download the file and upload it.
Yes. The transcript's download menu has Save to Drive, which writes the transcript text and the SRT to your Google Drive after you connect it.
Drive's video player can show a caption track you add to the file: open the video's menu in Drive, choose the caption tracks option and upload the SRT.
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file when fetched from a link or sent through the upload page. The box on this page takes direct uploads up to 500 MB.
Every page in this set uses the same upload box and the same export. All subtitle pages
Free preview. Share by link, paste, download; packs from $4 when the full transcript needs one.