Any YouTube
transcript, in seconds
Paste the link and transcribe a video to text in seconds, punctuated, clean, and ready to copy. Free, and no sign up, ever.
How to transcribe a YouTube video
Tap Share, then Copy link, or lift the URL straight from your browser bar.
We read the caption track, or transcribe the audio when there is none, and clean up the punctuation for you.
Copy it as plain text, or download a subtitle file. Nothing is stored afterwards.
What you get back
The video's caption track when it has one, cleaned into prose with punctuation and sentence breaks. When it has none, the spoken words transcribed by AI. Not a summary, and not a wall of lowercase.
Where a video carries timings, you can switch the view to show them or export the video to text as a subtitle file. Where it does not, you still get the full script, so nothing is promised that a given video cannot deliver.
Plain .txt for writing, .srt and .vtt for editors like CapCut and Premiere, .csv when you want the segments in a spreadsheet.
Clear speech lands around 95–98%. Loud music under quiet talking, heavy slang, and two people speaking at once all pull that down. Re-running the same link sometimes catches the missed words, because the audio is analysed from scratch each time.
Every YouTube transcript is free, there is no paid tier here, no export limit, and nothing held back behind an account. If you need to transcribe videos in bulk or from your own code, that is what the TranscriptFetch API is for.
What people use it for
Turn a video into a blog post, a newsletter, or a chapter list.
Quote a lecture accurately instead of scrubbing back and forth on the timeline.
Pull hooks and keywords out of competitors' best-performing videos.
Read a video when captions are missing, auto-generated badly, or in the wrong language.
40+ languages detected automatically
You do not pick one. The language is detected from the audio, so a Spanish video comes back in Spanish.
YouTube transcript generator: frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Every YouTube transcript is free, with no account, no card, and no export limit. The ads on this page pay for the servers.
Do you store the videos or the transcripts?
No. The audio is processed in memory and discarded once your text is on screen. Nothing is kept.
How accurate is it?
When the video has captions we use those, which are exact for creator-uploaded tracks and very good for YouTube's auto-generated ones. When it has none, the audio is transcribed with AI, typically 95 to 98% on clear speech.
Can I transcribe a private or unlisted video?
Unlisted works, since anyone with the link can watch it. Private, members-only and age-restricted videos do not: if you cannot open it in a browser without logging in, neither can we.
Does it work with short links and Shorts?
Yes. youtu.be links, Shorts, mobile URLs, and watch links with a timestamp or tracking parameters attached all work.
How long can the video be?
Any length when the video has captions, which is most of YouTube. A video with no caption track is transcribed from its audio, and that path covers up to 20 minutes.
Can I use this for subtitles?
Yes. Download .srt or .vtt and drop it straight into CapCut, Premiere, or YouTube.
Is transcribing someone else's video legal?
Transcribing for research, quoting, or accessibility is normal use. Republishing someone's content as your own is not, and that is on you rather than on the tool.
Can I do this in bulk, or from my own code?
Yes. TranscriptFetch is the API behind this page: one call returns the same transcript as JSON for YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, with batch fetching and an MCP server for AI tools. It includes 50 free credits a month.
Some words came out wrong. Why?
Auto-generated captions mis-hear names, brands and jargon; creator-uploaded captions usually do not. Where a video carries both, we prefer the uploaded track.