YouTubeScribe
Tools/Transcripts & subtitles

YouTube Transcript Generator

Full timestamped text from any video, free and without an account.

Input
Cues

Paste a watch, Shorts, or youtu.be link. We read the caption track YouTube already has.

  • Free · needs a video link
  • Reads public data only
  • Cached to protect quota
What this does

Paste a public YouTube watch, Shorts, or youtu.be link. We request the caption track YouTube already has and show the text on this page.

Nothing is transcribed from audio on this tool. If the video has no track, the result says so. Timestamps are optional. TXT and SRT are free.

Use cases
  1. 01Read a lecture or podcast as text and search it.
  2. 02Quote a line with the timestamp still attached.
  3. 03Feed a clean transcript into notes or a draft without copying the watch-page panel.
Glossary
Captions vs subtitlesWebVTTClosed captions
FAQ

Questions, answered.

Do I need an account?

No. The first transcript each day is complete without signing in.

What if the video has no captions?

Then there is no transcript to extract. The tool says so instead of returning an empty file.

Is anything stored?

Not on the free tier. The result is handed to your browser and is not written to a database.

From the notebook
How to get a transcript from a YouTube videoThe two-minute version, the three link shapes that trip people up, and what to do when the transcript panel is missing.Free YouTube subtitle extractor: every method that still worksFour ways to pull captions out of a YouTube video, what each one costs you in time, and the six official reasons a video has no track to pull.Why some YouTube videos have no captionsGoogle lists six reasons automatic captions never arrive. Here is each one, how to spot it before you paste, and what actually fixes it.
Related tools
Subtitle DownloaderThe caption file itself, as SRT or VTT, timings intact.Free · needs a linkShorts Transcript DownloaderSame extraction, tuned for vertical Shorts under 60 seconds.Free · needs a linkChapters ExtractorThe creator's own chapter markers, pulled out as a clean list.Free · needs a linkMost Replayed FinderSee which moments people rewatch most, from YouTube's own heat data.Free · needs a linkPlaylist ExporterProA playlist's running order and durations as CSV, ready for a spreadsheet.Pro · needs a linkTranscript CleanerFiller words and false starts removed, the wording left alone.Free · AI