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How to Open the Transcript on YouTube

By Scribiz4 min read

Open the video, expand the description under the title, and choose Show transcript. If that button is not there, YouTube has no captions for the video, or the page you are on does not show the transcript.

YouTube's help page says you can see the full transcript of any video that has captions, and gives one instruction for every device: in the video description, choose Show transcript. The steps below spell it out for a computer and a phone.

On a computer

  1. Open the video on youtube.com.
  2. Click ...more in the description box under the title.
  3. Scroll to the Transcript section. It says "Follow along using the transcript."
  4. Click Show transcript.

A panel opens next to the video with two tabs, Chapters and Transcript, and a Search transcript box for finding a word. The transcript scrolls as the video plays. Click any line to jump to that moment. To hide the timestamps, open the panel's three-dot menu and choose Toggle timestamps.

YouTube also says you can use the transcript to find chapters, when the video has them, and people and places mentioned in the video.

The transcript shows the video's caption text. When the captions are automatic, YouTube says machine learning algorithms generate them, so the quality may vary. Names, jargon and numbers deserve a second look.

We followed these steps on 4 October 2026, signed out, on a short public video. YouTube changes its layout from time to time, so look for the word Transcript rather than a fixed spot.

On a phone

In the YouTube app, the same path applies:

  1. Open the video.
  2. Tap the description under the title to expand it.
  3. Scroll to Transcript and tap Show transcript.
  4. Tap any line to jump to that moment.

YouTube does not publish separate phone steps, and the app layout changes between versions and accounts, so your screen can differ from this list. If you see no Transcript section, try the same video on a computer.

A phone browser behaves differently. When we opened a video on m.youtube.com in a phone-sized window on 4 October 2026, the expanded description had chapters and video details but no transcript section. Use the app, or switch the browser to its desktop site, which should load the computer layout.

When there is no Show transcript button

The button appears only when the video has captions. Check these causes:

  • The video has no captions. We opened a video of fireplace ambience: its description has no Transcript section at all.
  • The captions are not ready. YouTube says automatic captions may not be ready when a video is uploaded, because processing depends on the audio.
  • YouTube cannot make automatic captions. Its help page lists an unsupported language, a video that is too long, poor sound or speech it does not recognize, a long silence at the start, and overlapping speakers or mixed languages.
  • The video was a live stream. YouTube says automatic captions for live streams are English only and are rolling out to channels in stages. After a stream ends, the live captions do not stay on the video. YouTube makes new automatic captions for the recording, and they may differ from what appeared live.
  • You are in a phone browser. See above.

Do this, in order:

  1. Reload the page, and check again later if the video is new.
  2. Open the video on a computer.
  3. If the section is still missing, get the transcript from the audio. Our guide to getting a transcript with no captions has the steps.

Get the transcript as a file

The transcript panel is for reading, searching and jumping. YouTube's help page does not describe a download button for viewers. Creators can download captions from their own videos: in YouTube Studio, open Subtitles, pick the video, choose Edit next to a language, then Options and Download subtitles.

For someone else's video you need another tool. We make Scribiz: paste the link into YouTube transcript. It uses good captions when the video has them and listens to the audio when it does not, and it works without an account. You can export SRT, VTT, TXT, Markdown or JSON, and the download page explains each format. Without an account, results are kept for 24 hours, so export what you need before you close the tab. From a link, timestamps are per sentence and can drift by a couple of seconds.

Sources

Checked on 4 October 2026, with a browser check of the YouTube page for the panel and the missing section.

Not affiliated with YouTube, TikTok or Instagram.

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