YouTube Tools
YouTube Transcript Downloader
Download a YouTube video's transcript as plain text or with timestamps, from any public video URL or ID, auto-generated captions included. Free, instant, no sign-up needed.
How to use it
- Paste a YouTube URL (watch, youtu.be, shorts, or embed) or just the video ID.
- Optionally specify a language code to pick a specific caption language, if the video has more than one available.
- Copy or download the transcript text.
About this tool
Download a YouTube video's transcript as plain text, from a video URL or ID - the same captions available from the video's own caption toggle.
Frequently asked questions
- Which URL formats are supported?
- Standard watch URLs, youtu.be short links, Shorts links, embed links, or a bare 11-character video ID.
- Does this work for auto-generated captions?
- Yes - the result tells you whether the transcript came from creator-uploaded captions or YouTube's automatic speech recognition, which can be less accurate.
- What if the video has no captions at all?
- If a video has captions disabled entirely, no transcript can be extracted - the same as what you'd see trying to turn on captions in the YouTube player itself.
- Is this an official YouTube feature?
- No - this reads the same publicly-viewable caption data any viewer can already see via YouTube's own caption toggle for that video. It isn't part of YouTube's official API, so it can occasionally stop working if YouTube changes how captions are delivered.