What is the difference between a caption file and a transcript?

A caption file keeps the timings: each line is a cue with a start and an end, so a player can show it in sync. A transcript throws the timings away and leaves readable prose.

What is the difference between SRT and VTT?

SRT is the older, simpler format that video editors expect: numbered cues and comma-separated timecodes. VTT is the web standard, uses a dot in its timecodes, starts with a WEBVTT header, and supports positioning and styling.

Can I upload these captions to another video platform?

Yes. SRT and VTT are the standard upload formats, so the file works on Vimeo, LinkedIn, Wistia, a self-hosted player, or a YouTube re-upload.

Do the caption timings match the video exactly?

Yes. Every cue keeps its precise in and out points against the original video, so the track stays in sync when you attach it to a player or drop it on a timeline.

Which languages can I get subtitles in?

Whichever languages the video carries subtitles in, with the original language preferred where there are several. Nothing is machine-translated into a language the video does not have.

Will the captions need editing before I use them?

Often a light pass. Subtitle quality varies from video to video, and punctuation, capitalisation, names, and jargon are the usual things to fix.

Why are the captions broken into such short lines?

That is how subtitles work: a cue is sized to be readable on screen for a second or two, so sentences are split across several of them.

What if the video has no subtitles?

Then there is no caption track to export and the video cannot be processed here. Upload the audio file directly instead to have it transcribed.

Can I edit the caption file before I use it?

Yes. SRT and VTT are plain text, so any text editor will open them, and the transcript editor here lets you fix wording before exporting.

Can I download captions for a whole channel at once?

Not from this page, which handles one video per link. Bulk work is better done through the API on a paid plan.

YouTube subtitles,
in whatever format you need.

Paste a link and get the video's captions back as a proper subtitle file: cue numbers, timecodes, and all. Export as SRT for an editor, VTT for the web, JSON for tooling, or plain text, and skip retyping a single line.

Transcribe an episode

Speaker labels and timestamps included.

Free tier · no card

Exports as.txt.srt.vtt.json.docx.pdf

Sources in

Why the file matters

Words on a screen are not a subtitle track

Anyone can read captions off a video. What you cannot do by reading them is use them: copying the text by hand strips out the timings, and the timings are the part that makes a subtitle file a subtitle file.

That timing data is the whole value. It is what lets an editor drop captions onto a timeline in a single drag, what lets a translator swap the text without re-timing a single cue, and what lets a re-upload carry the same accessibility the original had. A wall of retyped text gets you none of it.

This tool gets the captions out and gives them back to you structured: numbered cues, precise in and out points, in whichever of the six formats your next step actually reads. What you do with them (edit, translate, re-upload, archive) is then just a file operation.

How it works

Paste, pick a format, download

Three steps, no software, and nothing to configure.

Copy the video link
From the address bar or the Share button. Regular videos, Shorts, youtu.be short links, all the same.
Choose your format
SRT for a video editor, VTT for the web, JSON for tooling, or plain text. Every one keeps its cue numbering and timecodes.
Download the subtitle file
The file lands ready to use, drag it onto a timeline, attach it to a player, or hand it to a translator.

Who it's for

Where caption files end up

Video editors

Drop the SRT on a timeline in Premiere, Final Cut, or DaVinci instead of typing captions by hand.

Translators & localizers

Start from the original cue timings and replace the text, rather than re-timing a whole video.

Accessibility teams

Ship a reviewed caption track with a re-upload, rather than leaving each platform to guess at one.

Anyone re-posting

Carry captions across to another platform so a re-upload is not silently less accessible than the original.

Exports

Six ways out

SRT and VTT are the subtitle formats almost everything accepts. JSON and plain text are there for when the destination is a script rather than a player.

.srt

SubRip subtitles

Numbered cues and timecodes. The format every video editor reads.

.vtt

WebVTT

The caption track HTML5 players and self-hosted video expect.

.json

Structured JSON

Each cue as an object with a start and an end, for tooling.

.txt

Plain text

Cues stripped out, leaving just the words. See the transcript tool.

.docx

Word document

Speaker headings and timestamps as real formatting, ready to edit or hand off.

.pdf

Print-ready PDF

Paginated and page-numbered, for sharing, archiving, or marking up.

While you are here

Discover PodcastsToText

The transcript is where it starts. Here is what the rest of the studio does with it.

Your video opens in an editor.

Click a line and the video jumps to it, playing in the page with the line you are on highlighted as it goes. Fix a mis-heard word and the export carries the fix. The whole video is one page you can actually read.

Try the live demo

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Transcribed from the episode link · click any line to seek

Marios

Have you ever listened to a podcast and wish you could read what was being said?

Maybe to quote it, study it, or just to find that one line again without re-listening to the whole podcast.

Hey everyone, I'm Marios and I'm really excited to introduce you to my new project,

podcasttotext.com.

It's a web-based app that converts podcast episodes from Spotify and Apple Podcasts into clean, accurate text in just seconds.

Why did I build this up? You may ask.

I built it because I listened to a lot of podcasts.

And at the end of each episode, I was forgetting what was being said.

So I wanted a way to quickly take notes or revisit specific moments without rewinding,

without re-listening the whole podcast.

Uploading files or manually transcribing just wasn't practical.

So I decided to make something that's fast.

Chapters

The problem: hearing something and losing it