Paste a public YouTube link and download captions as WebVTT, the format browser players and most course platforms load. The same job gives SRT if an editor asks for that instead.
How it works
Copy the address from the browser bar or from YouTube's Share button. Shorts and finished live streams work the same way.
The audio is fetched and transcribed in the language spoken, typically a few minutes for an hour of video.
Choose .vtt in the download menu. The file starts with the WEBVTT line and uses full-stop milliseconds, as browsers require.
Why VTT rather than SRT
YouTube Studio and video editors read SRT happily. A web page does not: the HTML <track> element accepts WebVTT only, and silently shows nothing when handed an SRT. So you want the VTT download when the video is going to:
For YouTube's own caption upload or an edit in Premiere, take the SRT: YouTube to SRT.
Links that do not import
YouTube decides what can be fetched. Most public videos import; in our last two months about three in four YouTube links went through. A link fails when the video is private, age-restricted behind a sign-in, blocked in the region our servers fetch from, or still live. When that happens, upload the video file itself: your own videos can be downloaded from YouTube Studio.
Sample output
WEBVTT 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 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:50.300 that all men are created equal. 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 00:00:57.500 --> 00:01:01.620 and so dedicated, can long endure. 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 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 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-minute tutorial | $0.08 | $0.06 | $0.05 |
| 45-minute talk | $0.36 | $0.27 | $0.22 |
| 3-hour stream replay | $1.44 | $1.08 | $0.86 |
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
Paste the video's link into the box on this page. When the transcript is ready, open it and choose .vtt in the download menu.
No. The file is made by transcribing the video's audio, so it exists even when the video has no captions, and it is not a copy of YouTube's automatic ones.
The cues are the same. VTT starts with a WEBVTT header and writes milliseconds after a full stop; SRT numbers each cue and uses a comma. Browsers need VTT; most editors want SRT.
Most public videos work. Private, sign-in-restricted and still-live videos cannot be fetched from a link; upload the video file instead.
With credits on the account, the download menu translates the subtitles into 35 languages and saves them as SRT, which converts to VTT in the browser with the SRT to VTT tool.
Every page in this set uses the same upload box and the same export. All subtitle pages
Free preview. VTT and SRT from the same job; packs from $4 when the full transcript needs one.