YouTube transcript generator: paste the link, get the text
Get a YouTube transcript from any link in about two minutes per hour of video: free, no account, up to 60 minutes per video, 10 videos a day.
Related: Free YouTube thumbnail maker.
Last updated: October 2026
Paste the link, ScribeGrab fetches the video and transcribes the audio itself, so it also works when the video has no captions. You get clean text plus SRT/VTT subtitles you can upload back.
No account. 10 recordings a day. Files up to 60 minutes here, and it resets at midnight.
Plain transcript and subtitles right here. Bleeping, translation and burned-in subtitles live in the full tool.
Transcribe YouTube videos without downloading them first
This used to start with the file: find a downloader, hope it worked, then upload what came out. Not here. Paste the link and ScribeGrab does the fetching, so you can transcribe a YouTube video straight from your browser's address bar, and get text from YouTube video pages without copying anything by hand. Going from YouTube to transcript this way also lets you extract text from YouTube video content that only exists as speech, because anything without captions gets transcribed. If the video already carries a subtitle track, the text comes back in about a second. If it carries none, we do what a caption-scraper cannot: pull the sound from YouTube videos ourselves and transcribe it. That second case is where most other sites simply stop. You can transcribe a video for free right here, or transcribe video free from an uploaded file in the full tool on the homepage if you'd rather skip the link. No account is needed either way.
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To transcribe YouTube video online free, paste the link above; nothing installs and there is no account. You can transcribe YouTube video to text free for up to ten videos a day that need transcribing, and turn several YouTube videos to text one link at a time. Most sites that transcribe YouTube video free of charge only scrape existing captions, which is why they come back empty on videos without them.
Here, video AI means speech recognition: when a video has no captions, we pull the YouTube video audio and a speech model on our own GPU writes it down, so you can AI transcribe a video that YouTube never captioned. The AI is the fallback, not the first step, because existing captions are faster. If you want the transcript for AI tools afterwards, such as a chatbot you want to ask about the video, or for summarising and paraphrasing, the TXT pastes straight in. Converting video audio to text works the same for Shorts and livestream replays.
Want more than the transcript? Our YouTube summarizer gives you the short version from the same link, so you can summarize a YouTube video without reading every line, and translate subtitles turns the transcript into another language afterwards. The language is detected automatically from around 100, so you can transcribe YouTube video Arabic, Chinese, Spanish or German content the same way as English. If you are comparing sites, the fair test is to paste the same link into each tool to transcribe YouTube video content and read the results side by side.
How it works
- Copy the YouTube link. Take it from the address bar, or from the Share button under the video on your phone. Both shapes work: youtube.com/watch?v=… and youtu.be/….
- Paste it in the box above and press the button. Transcription runs on our own hardware, so there is nothing to install and no software to transcribe video with on your own machine.
- Download what you need. TXT for reading and quoting, SRT or VTT for subtitles, or copy the text straight off the page.
That is the whole thing: no account, no card, no browser extension. Would you rather work from the file, because the video is private or age-restricted, or you still have your own original export? This box only takes links, so upload that file in the full tool on the homepage and you get the same three downloads back.
What you get, and the limits
Every run gives you three files: TXT (plain text), SRT and VTT (both timed subtitle files you can upload back to YouTube). Around 100 languages are detected automatically, so you do not have to pick one from a list. A YouTube link to transcript run gives you the full transcript text and the video captions as files, and nothing else. Used as a YouTube video to text converter online free of charge, it handles Shorts as a quick video transcribe job too.
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- Length: up to 60 minutes per video for free when we have to transcribe the audio. A €5 ShinobiTools pass raises that to 4 hours, and works on our other tools too. When the video already has captions, length doesn't matter (up to 12 hours) and the run doesn't count towards your daily limit, because we only fetch a text file.
- Speed: about two minutes per hour of video. If the video already has a subtitle track, the text is back almost immediately.
- Uploads: up to 1.5 GB per file if you upload one instead of pasting a link.
- How often: 10 videos a day, and it resets at midnight. Three videos in an afternoon costs the same as one: nothing.
- Afterwards: the audio is deleted as soon as the transcript is made, and the result itself is wiped after 45 minutes: 24 hours if you have a pass, because that longer window is part of what the pass is for.
And what it does not do, so you know before you start: it is not a YouTube video converter. No video or audio file comes out, so there is no YouTube video to MP4 download and no YouTube video to WAV export, only TXT, SRT and VTT. If you want to save the video itself, that is a different kind of site; this one doesn't save video at all. It cannot follow a live stream while it is still running, it cannot reach a private, members-only or age-restricted video, and it does not play or loop a YouTube video on repeat. Only transcribe videos you own or are allowed to use.
YouTube transcript vs. YouTube's own captions
YouTube does show a transcript panel under most videos: the three dots, then Show transcript. It is free and instant, and for a quick look it is enough. The trouble starts when you want to keep the text. The panel is one long column with a timestamp glued to every line, there is no download button, and copying it by hand leaves you deleting timestamps for ten minutes. Auto-captions also have almost no punctuation, and they guess badly at names, places and anything technical.
A YouTube transcript generator hands you the text as a file instead. Ask for a transcript of YouTube video content here and you get YouTube video to text as a TXT with one caption line per line, without the timestamps glued on, plus SRT and VTT if you want real subtitles. It is the same YouTube captions to text step, but finished. To generate transcript from youtube video links that do have captions takes about a second; to convert youtube video to text when there are none, we transcribe the audio from scratch. And because we transcribe the audio ourselves when we have to, YouTube to text also works on videos with no caption track at all: a livestream replay, a fresh upload, a channel that never switched captions on. Those are exactly the videos where a caption-scraping site returns an empty page.
One note. When the video does have captions, we hand you those, because they are already there and they cost you no waiting. Manual captions were typed by a person and are better than any machine can do; automatic ones come from YouTube's own recognition, and the result says so, so you always know whose words you are reading. Want ours instead? Upload the file and we transcribe it from scratch.
Two quick answers. How to transcribe a youtube video: paste its link above, wait a few minutes and download the TXT. And YouTube transcription needs no download step here: the tool works as a YouTube transcriber on the link itself, and a video without captions is transcribed from its audio, so YouTube transcription also works when YouTube has nothing to show.
When people use this
- Lectures. An hour of class becomes notes you can search: the same job as our lecture transcription page, starting from a link instead of a file. Students keep transcripts of YouTube videos from a course in one folder.
- Interviews and podcasts on YouTube. Pull the quotes you need without scrubbing back and forth in the player.
- Quotes for an article. You get the wording exactly as it was said, which is the point when you are quoting someone, and a transcript of YouTube videos you cite makes the quote easy to check.
- Subtitles for your own channel. The SRT and VTT go straight back into YouTube Studio. See video subtitles and add subtitles to any video.
- Study notes. Print YouTube video transcripts, highlight them on paper, or paste them into your notes app. A YouTube video to transcript run is also an easy way to get YouTube transcript text into a document you can search.
- The short version instead of the full text. If you only want the gist, our YouTube summarizer can summarize YouTube videos for you instead.
Wondering how to transcribe a video that is not yours? The same three steps, with one rule on top: only use videos you own or have permission to use. Want to transcribe my video specifically: one you filmed yourself? Same three steps, and it's the easiest case: no rights question to check first.
Better than the auto-captions
YouTube's own auto-captions are often rough and can't be downloaded as a tidy file. Running the video through our speech model gives you a cleaner transcript you can actually keep, edit and repurpose, as TXT for notes or SRT/VTT to re-upload as proper subtitles.
- A clean, downloadable transcript instead of scattered captions
- SRT/VTT you can upload back to YouTube as real subtitles
- Text for blog posts, summaries and study notes
- Around 100 languages auto-detected
How to do it
Paste the video's YouTube link straight into the tool and ScribeGrab fetches it for you: no download needed. If the video already has captions (manual or auto), you get a transcript back in a second; if it doesn't, ScribeGrab pulls just the audio and transcribes it on the GPU.
- Copy the YouTube link and paste it into ScribeGrab.
- Instant if captions exist, otherwise it queues for transcription (free limit: 60 minutes).
- Download the transcript as TXT, or SRT/VTT for captions.
Prefer to upload the file yourself, or is the video private or age-restricted so ScribeGrab can't reach it? Download it (YouTube Studio for your own uploads, or ask the creator otherwise) and upload that file in the full tool on the homepage instead. Same limits, and the file always gets our own transcription, whatever captions exist on YouTube.
For your own videos too
If it's your own channel, the same flow gives you upload-ready caption files. See video subtitles and add subtitles to any video for the captioning workflow, and SRT vs VTT if you're unsure which format to pick.
Getting the file, without breaking anything
This used to be the step people got stuck on. Paste the link and ScribeGrab fetches it for you now: instantly from existing captions, or by pulling just the audio if there are none. The steps below are for the cases where that isn't enough: the video is private or age-restricted (ScribeGrab can't reach those either), or you'd simply rather upload the file yourself for the more accurate transcription.
For your own videos there's nothing to work around. Open YouTube Studio → Content, click the three dots next to the video, and choose Download. You get the file you originally uploaded, which is also the highest-quality copy available, and it goes straight into ScribeGrab. If you still have the original export on your drive, use that instead and skip the download entirely.
For someone else's video the legitimate routes are: ask the creator for the file (for interviews, podcasts and webinars this is normal and usually a one-line e-mail), use the media kit or press download that many channels and companies publish, or check whether the same content exists as a podcast episode, which almost always has a downloadable MP3. If you were sent a video privately, you already have the file.
And if all you want is a rough idea of what was said, YouTube's own transcript panel is right there under the video: click the three dots, Show transcript. It's messy and you can't download it cleanly, which is the reason this page exists, but it's free and instant and sometimes that's enough.
Turning the transcript into captions you can upload
If the point of transcribing is better subtitles on your own channel, the run gives you everything you need in one pass. You get SRT and VTT alongside the plain text, both timed to the audio, and YouTube accepts either one.
The upload path is YouTube Studio → Subtitles → your video → ADD LANGUAGE → Upload file → With timing. That's the step people miss: choose with timing, because an SRT already carries its own timestamps and letting YouTube re-sync a timed file produces drift. Once uploaded, your captions replace the auto-generated ones and the auto-captions stop being shown.
Two things worth doing before you upload. First, read the transcript once and fix names, jargon and product spellings: those are exactly what speech recognition gets wrong, and they're exactly what viewers searching for your video type. Corrected captions are indexed by YouTube, so this is the rare bit of editing that pays for itself. Second, speaker labels: when we transcribe the audio ourselves and hear two to eight voices, ScribeGrab labels who said what automatically, which makes an interview transcript readable as a document rather than a wall of text. When the text comes from YouTube's existing captions there are no speaker labels, because we don't process the audio then. Labels are AI-estimated, so check them on the handoffs.
By Sam Ridder, I build and run ScribeGrab on my own hardware, on my own. Who I am.
Sources
- Use automatic captioning - YouTube Help: YouTube auto captions vary with accents and background noise
Frequently asked
Do I paste a YouTube link?
Yes. Paste it and ScribeGrab fetches the video for you: a transcript comes back instantly if captions already exist, or after transcribing the audio if they don't. You don't need the actual file, just the video link. If you'd rather upload a file, or the video is private or age-restricted, use the full tool on the homepage.
Does it work if the video has no captions?
Yes, and that is the point. When YouTube has no subtitle track for a video, ScribeGrab pulls the audio and transcribes it on our own hardware, so this YouTube video transcriber still gives you text. Sites that are only a YouTube transcript extractor for existing captions come back empty on exactly those videos.
How long does a YouTube transcript take?
About two minutes per hour of video when we transcribe the audio ourselves, so a ten-minute video is back in well under a minute and a YouTube Short in seconds. If the video already has a subtitle track, the text is back almost immediately, because then there is nothing to transcribe.
Is this YouTube transcript generator free, and what are the limits?
Yes. This free YouTube transcript generator needs no account and adds no watermark, so you can transcribe video for free. The YouTube video transcript generator free tier isn't a trial, and YouTube transcript free use resets every day. Free YouTube video transcription covers up to 60 minutes per video and 10 videos a day when we transcribe the audio; a longer video needs a €5 pass, which raises the limit to four hours. Videos that already have captions come back regardless of length and don't use up your daily count. It is a free no account video transcribe tool in the plain sense: paste the link, wait for the transcript, and nothing asks you to register.
Can I get the transcript with timestamps?
Yes. A free YouTube video transcript here comes as three files: the SRT and VTT file carry a start and end time for every line, so that's your transcript with timestamps, while the TXT leaves them out for reading, quoting and pasting into a document. The TXT is plain text you can edit in any text editor.
How to get a transcript of a YouTube video, step by step?
Copy the link from the address bar or the Share button, paste it in the box above and press the button, then download the files. That is how to get transcript of youtube video uploads with captions, and how to transcribe a YouTube video without them; only the waiting time differs. How to generate transcript from YouTube video links in other languages is the same, because the language is detected for you. To get YouTube video transcript files for several videos, run one link after another.
Does YouTube transcribe videos on its own?
Partly. YouTube makes automatic captions for many videos and shows them in the transcript panel (three dots, Show transcript), but there's no clean download, which is a transcript generator YouTube itself doesn't offer. Pasting the link here does the transcript YouTube video to text step for you and hands you the files. Auto-captions also miss most punctuation; when we use them, the result tells you so.
Can I turn it into real subtitles?
Yes. Every run also produces SRT and VTT, which you can upload back to YouTube as captions.
Which languages are supported?
Around 100, detected automatically, so you do not have to pick one. The transcript comes back in the language that is spoken; turning it into another language is a separate step with translate subtitles.
How to get the transcript of a YouTube video that's private, members-only or age-restricted?
The link fetch can't reach those. Download the file through your own access first (YouTube Studio for your own uploads), then upload it in the full tool on the homepage to create transcript files the normal way. The full tool is also where you transcribe video to text from a file instead of a link.
How to get transcript from YouTube video replays, unlisted videos and Shorts?
Paste the link like any other. A live stream works once it has ended and is saved as a normal video, an unlisted video works as long as you have the direct link, and Shorts links are recognised too.
Is this allowed?
Only transcribe videos you own or have permission to use. You're responsible for the content you transcribe.
Can ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude transcribe a YouTube link?
Not as a plain link-paste in most consumer versions. A chat assistant can discuss a video, and Gemini has video features inside Google's own apps, but a Gemini search or a chat prompt doesn't hand you a clean TXT and SRT of what was said. Note apps like Evernote keep their transcription inside the app and your account. This page fetches the link directly and gives you files, with no account.
Does it label the different speakers?
When a video to text transcribe run goes through our speech model, yes: two to eight voices are labelled Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on, which makes an interview transcript much easier to read. Swap in the real names afterwards with find-and-replace. When the text comes from YouTube's existing captions there are no speaker labels.
Does a low YouTube quality video setting hurt the transcript?
No. Picture resolution never touches the transcript, because only the audio is used: a blurry 360p upload with clear sound reads exactly as accurately as a 4K one.
Can I transcribe Instagram video by pasting the link, the same as YouTube?
Not by link: the paste box only fetches from YouTube. Save the Instagram video to a file first and upload that in the full tool instead; the same transcript, SRT and VTT come back.
Can this turn a music video into lyrics?
It can try YouTube to lyrics text the same way it transcribes speech, but singing over music is much harder than plain speech, so expect mistakes. If the music video has captions, you get those instead.
Can this loop a video on YouTube or convert it to a video file?
No. Looping is a setting in the YouTube player itself: right-click the video and choose Loop, which is how you loop videos on YouTube without any tool. A YouTube to video converter, where a video file comes out, is a different kind of site. This page only turns a link into text.
Does ScribeGrab keep a copy of the video?
No. The fetched audio is deleted right after processing and the result is wiped within 45 minutes (24 hours with any pass, free or paid).
Can I get a summary of a YouTube video instead of the full transcript?
This page gives you the full transcript, worded exactly as it was said. If you only want the gist, ScribeGrab's YouTube summarizer gives you the short version from the same link, so you can summarize a YouTube video without reading every line.
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