Chrome extension · no account needed
YouTube Caption Downloader
Turn the captions a video already has into a transcript beside the player. Copy it with timestamps or save it as a file.
- TXT
- MD
- SRT
- VTT
- 0:01Plants turn sunlight into food. We call this photosynthesis.
- 0:16First, the leaves catch light. Then they take in water and air.
- 0:31The plant makes sugar and gives oxygen back to us.
YouTube to text in three steps
- 1
Open a video
Any regular watch page with subtitles or CC. Reload tabs that were open before you installed.
- 2
Click Show transcript
The box sits above the suggested videos, or under the player in a narrow window. It picks the creator's track first.
- 3
Copy or download
Copy the text, or pick TXT, Markdown, SRT or VTT. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment.
Download YouTube captions as text or subtitles
Each file uses the track you picked, and its name carries the video title and the track.
- TXT
Clean paragraphs for reading, notes and quotes.
- MD
The same text in Markdown, with timestamps that link to each moment.
- SRT
Numbered cues with the original timing, for editing.
- VTT
WebVTT for web players.
The right track in every language the video has
Many videos have several tracks: captions from the creator, automatic subtitles, sometimes two in one language. The panel lists them separately, marks Original and Auto, and searches long language lists.
- Readable paragraphs instead of broken caption lines.
- Title, channel and link at the top of copied text and TXT or Markdown files.
- Long videos work too: multi-hour courses, interviews and podcasts.
- Clear messages when a video has no captions or a track fails to load.
Runs in your browser
Caption requests go straight from your browser to YouTube. The extension has no account, no analytics and no server of ours, and transcripts never reach us or an AI service.
Read the privacy policy for the details, including what this website measures.
Questions
Does it work on videos without captions?
No. It reads captions the video already has, from the creator or YouTube's automatic ones. It never runs speech recognition, and the panel says so at once when a video has no captions.
Can I copy the transcript with or without timestamps?
Yes. Timestamps are on by default. Switch them off, then press Copy; saved text files follow the same switch.
Does it work with automatic captions?
Yes, and Auto marks them. They are made by machine, so check names and numbers before you quote them.
Can I get captions in another language?
Yes, if the video has a track in that language. The extension never translates, so a language missing from the list is not available.
Does it download video or audio?
No. It saves only text and subtitle files.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no sign-up, and caption requests go straight from your browser to YouTube. Transcripts never reach us or an AI service.