Guides
How to get a YouTube transcript
How to fetch a YouTube transcript with timestamps, download it as TXT or SRT, translate it, and process playlists in bulk.
By GistCite team, Product and engineering · For content creators, researchers and students, developers
Published · Reviewed
Key takeaways
- Paste a video link, short link or bare ID; no account is needed for a handful of transcripts.
- Manual captions are preferred over auto-generated ones when a video has both.
- Download as TXT for notes or SRT for subtitles, or translate into another caption language.
- Batches and whole playlists need a Pro or API plan.
- A video with captions disabled has no transcript to fetch; use Speech to Text on the audio instead.
Paste the link
A watch URL, a shortened youtu.be link, or a bare video ID all work in the YouTube Transcripts tool. No account is required for a handful of transcripts; signing in adds history and a monthly quota.
What comes back
The tool fetches the caption track the same way a browser would, and prefers manual captions over auto-generated ones when both exist, since manual captions are usually the more accurate of the two. The result is the full transcript with a timestamp on every segment, or a clean paragraph view without them. Repeat requests for the same video are cached, so a second person asking gets the result instantly.
The response also shows which language the captions are in and whether they are manual or auto-generated, so you know upfront how reliable the wording is likely to be.
Download, translate or summarize
Save the transcript as plain text for notes or as SRT subtitles for a video editor. The tool also lists every caption language the video offers and can translate the transcript, useful for a source in a language you do not read. From the same transcript, AI Summary and Ask This Source can produce an overview, chapters and cited answers on Pro or API.
Batches and playlists
Pasting many links, or a whole playlist link, runs as one job on Pro or API and downloads the results together, turning a channel's back catalogue into a working set of transcripts in one sitting instead of one link at a time.
Because the same fetch and cache apply to every item in a batch, a video that has already been requested by someone else still returns instantly instead of re-running the whole job.
When there is no transcript to fetch
If a video's captions are disabled, there is no caption track to read, manual or auto-generated, and the transcript tool has nothing to fetch. For that case, download the audio and run it through Speech to Text instead.
Questions
- Does it work on videos without captions?
- No. A video with captions disabled has no caption track to fetch; use Speech to Text on the audio instead.
- Is the transcript accurate?
- As accurate as the captions themselves. Manual captions are usually strong; auto-generated ones vary with audio quality, and manual captions are preferred whenever a video has them.
- Can I get a whole playlist?
- Yes, on Pro or API: paste the playlist link and download every video's transcript together.