YouTube Subtitle Downloader
Paste a link. Download SRT or VTT subtitles with no extension and no software.
1. Pick a format
For video editors. Same words and timing in every format.
100:00:03,200 --> 00:00:05,800Every format starts from the same transcript.200:00:05,800 --> 00:00:08,900The timing and the words stay identical,300:00:08,900 --> 00:00:11,400only the wrapping around them changes.400:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,100SRT numbers the cues and uses commas.500:00:15,100 --> 00:00:18,000VTT adds a header and uses dots.600:00:18,000 --> 00:00:20,700Plain text drops the times entirely.2. Paste the link
Free to try, no sign-up. You can change the format on the result page.
How it works
Pick SRT or VTT
SRT for editors and most players, VTT for the web.
Paste the link
A watch URL, a youtu.be link or a Short.
Download the file
Good captions are used as they are. With none, Scribiz listens and writes them.
What a subtitle file holds
For video editors
100:00:01,400 --> 00:00:04,200Welcome back. Today we are fixing a leaking tap.200:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,100First, turn off the water under the sink.300:00:08,000 --> 00:00:10,600Then open the tap to let the pressure out.400:00:11,900 --> 00:00:15,000You will need an adjustable wrench and a new washer.500:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,300Keep the old washer to match the size.Illustrative cues from a repair tutorial. A cue is one caption on screen: a start time, an end time and a line of text.
The subtitles YouTube has, and the ones it does not
Scribiz uses the captions the video already carries when they are good: the creator's own track in the spoken language, or the automatic one once it passes a quality check. The cue times are YouTube's own.
When a video has none, or only rough ones, Scribiz listens to the audio and writes new subtitles, with times taken from the words. The result says which you got, and the listening run costs more minutes.
Subtitles written from the audio follow caption rules. A cue ends at a sentence end, a pause, eight words or 3.5 seconds, and a line holds at most 42 characters.
SRT or VTT
The two hold the same cues. SRT is the one editors and players open, so start there. VTT is for web players and the HTML5 video tag.
| File | Open it in | Time format |
|---|---|---|
| .srt | Video editors, VLC and most players | 00:00:01,400 |
| .vtt | Web players and the HTML5 video tag | 00:00:01.400 |
Use them well
For your own video, upload the file in YouTube Studio under Subtitles, with timing. To read the words rather than watch them, the YouTube transcript page is better, and Download a YouTube transcript covers TXT, Markdown and PDF.
Shorts and finished live streams work like any public video. You get the language that is spoken. Scribiz skips machine-translated tracks and does not translate. For a file you already have, the SRT generator writes subtitles from audio or video. Output formats shows both files with real cues.
Limits
Public videos only. Without an account: videos up to 15 minutes, 10 Listen or Watch minutes a day and 30 caption lookups a day. A free account takes videos up to 2 hours and 30 minutes a month. Pro takes 6 hours and 600 minutes a month, and is not on sale yet. A video that already has captions uses a tenth of a minute per minute of video.
See pricing · How minutes are counted · Paid plans are not on sale yet.