MediaScribeCaptions → saved
Download YouTube captions
To download YouTube captions, paste a video link below and pick a format — a timed SRT or VTT file, or clean TXT/Markdown text. Free, no sign-in, no daily limit. First, a quick word on what “captions” even means here.
Works on any video with captions · or add the Chrome extension for one-click transcripts on every video.
On this page
Captions, subtitles — what’s the difference?
The two words trip everyone up, so let’s settle it. On YouTube, captions and subtitles are nearly the same thing: the timed lines you see when CC is on, drawn from one underlying caption track. By convention, the first means the track in the video’s own language, and “subtitles” means a translated one — but they’re the same kind of data, and you download them the same way.
So whichever word you came with, you’re after the same file. If you specifically want translated subtitles as a file, downloading YouTube subtitles is the same job from that angle; for the full background, the YouTube transcript overview goes deeper.
Download the captions in one step
No install and no account. Copy the video URL, paste it into the box above, and export:
- Paste the link into the tool above.
- Pick a format — SRT/VTT for a file, TXT/Markdown for text.
- Download to your device.
It’s done in seconds, with no cap on how many you save. If you do this often, the Chrome extension adds the same export buttons beside the player — one click on any video.
Paste a link, pick a format, save. Captions off the player and onto your disk.
A file, or plain text
Downloading gives you a choice the player never does — what shape to save the captions in:
- SRT and VTT — timed caption files for video editors, re-uploads, or your own captions. For the SRT route in full, see YouTube subtitles to SRT.
- TXT and Markdown — the words as plain text for reading, notes, or pasting into an AI assistant. The captions to text page covers that route.
Each format can keep the timecodes or drop them — working captions, or a clean read.
Auto-generated vs creator captions
What you download is only as clean as the track behind it. Creator captions — written by the uploader — are punctuated and read well. Auto-generated captions — YouTube’s speech recognition — are fine for clear speech but arrive without punctuation and trip over names and accents. When a video offers both, the original-language creator track is the cleaner source; with an auto one, save the text and add a few full stops before you use it anywhere public.
Captions in another language
The captions download in the video’s own language by default. Want a different one? Pick it from the translate menu before you export, and the file or text comes out in that language. It runs on the caption data, so translating stays free — handy for saving a foreign-language video’s captions in the language you read, or building a second subtitle track to ship alongside the original.
When there are no captions to download
Sometimes nothing comes out, and the reason is simple: the video has no caption track. The uploader added none and YouTube generated none — common on music, very short clips, or unclear audio. You can confirm it on the video: open the gear icon → Subtitles/CC. If the list is empty, the captions were never made, and no tool can download captions that don’t exist.
What downloaded captions are for
Once they’re saved, they fit straight into the work. Load an SRT into a video editor to caption a clip, or re-upload a cleaned track to your own video. Keep the TXT to read, quote or search offline. Hand the text to an AI assistant for a summary — it’s the exact words, not audio.
Downloaded captions are also how you move a video between tools. Translators want an SRT, not a link; accessibility teams need a file to check against guidelines; an editor cutting a clip wants the timed lines to burn in. Saving the track once means you can hand the right file to each of them without anyone re-typing a word. And because SRT and VTT are plain, standard formats, they open in any editor and load into any player years from now — nothing about them is tied to this site. For getting the track out without saving a file, extracting the subtitles covers the quick path. The job here is to get the captions off the player cleanly; what you do with them is up to you.
Frequently asked questions
How do I download captions from a YouTube video?
Paste the video link into the tool above and choose a format — SRT or VTT for a timed file, TXT or Markdown for plain text. It is free, with no sign-in.
Are captions and subtitles the same thing?
On YouTube they’re nearly the same on-screen lines, drawn from the same data. People say “captions” for the same-language track and “subtitles” for a translated one, but you download both the same way.
Can I download auto-generated captions?
Yes. The tool reads both creator captions and YouTube’s auto-generated ones. Auto-captions come without punctuation, so tidy them before publishing.
What if the video has no captions?
Then there’s nothing to download. If the gear → Subtitles/CC list is empty, no caption track was made and none can be saved.