YouTube Transcript Generator
Paste a YouTube link to check it’s the right video. Then copy the transcript free from YouTube itself (steps below), or get a timed transcript file from Short.now in SRT, VTT or plain text.
How to get a YouTube transcript free, on a computer
YouTube shows a transcript for most videos that have captions, including auto-generated ones. No tool needed.
-
Open the video on youtube.com
Use a desktop browser. The full transcript panel works best there.
-
Expand the description
Click …more under the video title to open the full description.
-
Click “Show transcript”
Scroll to the end of the description and click Show transcript. The transcript opens in a panel next to the video, with a timestamp on each line.
-
Pick the language and hide timestamps
If the video has captions in more than one language, choose one at the bottom of the panel. To copy clean text, open the panel’s ⋮ menu and choose Toggle timestamps.
-
Select and copy
Select the text from the first line to the last and copy it (Ctrl+C, or ⌘+C on a Mac). Paste it into a doc and tidy the line breaks.
How to see a YouTube transcript on your phone
The YouTube app for iPhone and Android shows transcripts too, with one limit.
- Open the video in the YouTube app and tap the title to open the description.
- Scroll down to the Transcript section and tap Show transcript.
- Tap any line to jump to that moment in the video.
- The app doesn’t let you select and copy the text. To copy it, open the video on a computer, or use a file from Short.now (below).
- No Transcript section? The video has no captions. That happens when the creator turned them off, the video is very new, or the audio is music or in a language YouTube doesn’t auto-caption.
Ways to get a YouTube transcript, compared
| Method | Works for | Timestamps | Download as a file | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube “Show transcript” | Any video with captions | Yes, can hide | No, copy and paste | Free |
| YouTube Studio → Subtitles | Your own videos | Yes | Yes | Free |
| Short.now, upload the video file | Any video file you have, up to 30 min on the free plan | Yes (SRT, VTT) | SRT, VTT, TXT | Free plan: 3 videos to start |
| Short.now, paste the YouTube link | Public YouTube videos | Yes (SRT, VTT) | SRT, VTT, TXT | Paid plans, from $6.99/mo |
Short.now transcribes the audio itself, so it works even when a video has no captions on YouTube.
What you get when Short.now makes the transcript
Short.now is a clip maker: it transcribes your video to find the best moments and caption them. You can download that transcript.
SRT and VTT with timestamps
Standard caption files with a start and end time on every line. Upload them to YouTube, a video editor or a course platform.
Plain text (TXT)
One phrase per line, no timestamps. Good for reading, quoting, show notes or turning a video into a blog post.
100 languages
Transcription runs on Whisper large-v3. It detects the spoken language by itself, or you can pick it from a list before you start.
Clips come with it
The same project gives you captioned vertical clips for Shorts, TikTok and Reels, cut from the best moments of the video.
How to download a YouTube transcript with Short.now
1. Sign up free with the button above. If you sign up with email, the link in your inbox takes you to the new-project page. With Google, start a new project once you’re in.
2. Add the video. On the free plan, upload the video file. For your own channel, you can download it from YouTube Studio (Content → ⋮ → Download). On a paid plan (from $6.99 a month) choose From link and paste the YouTube URL we copied for you.
3. Wait for processing. Short.now transcribes the full video and makes the clips.
4. Download the transcript. Open the project, go to the Info tab, and under Captions choose Download captions: SRT, VTT or plain text.
A word on other people’s videos: a transcript is the creator’s words. Quoting a few lines with credit is normal. Republishing a whole transcript as your own content is not, so ask first.
Got the transcript? Get the clips too.
The same Short.now project finds the best moments in your video, reframes them to 9:16 and burns in captions from the transcript, so one upload gives you a week of Shorts, Reels and TikToks.
Questions
On a computer, open the video, click “…more” under the title, scroll down and click “Show transcript”. The transcript opens next to the video. Use the ⋮ menu to hide timestamps, then select and copy the text.
YouTube only lets you download caption files for your own videos, in YouTube Studio under Subtitles. For other videos you can copy the text from the transcript panel, or make an SRT, VTT or TXT file with Short.now.
Copying the transcript from YouTube is free. Short.now’s free plan makes a transcript file when you upload the video (up to 30 minutes, 3 videos to start). Pasting a YouTube link instead of uploading needs a paid plan, from $6.99 a month.
The transcript comes from the video’s captions. If the creator turned captions off, the video was just uploaded, or YouTube can’t auto-caption the language or audio, there is no transcript. Short.now transcribes the audio itself, so it can still make one if you have the video file.
The link checker accepts Shorts, live, youtu.be and regular watch links. Short.now’s link import handles the same kinds of links on paid plans, for videos up to the length your plan allows.
Short.now transcribes 100 languages with Whisper large-v3 and detects the language on its own. If a less common language comes out wrong, pick it by hand before you start.
No. Short.now makes transcripts and clips, not summaries. You can paste the plain-text transcript into the AI assistant you already use and ask it for a summary.
