YouTube Shorts to text

How our YouTube transcript generator works

It's built for YouTube Shorts. Paste a public YouTube Shorts link and the full transcript comes back in about 10 to 25 seconds. Regular YouTube videos work too (a watch link, a youtu.be link or a live replay) as long as they are up to 10 minutes long.

1. Copy the Shorts link with YouTube's Share button, or from the address bar.
2. Paste it above and press Get the script.
3. Take the YouTube transcript. Copy it for ChatGPT, or download it as TXT, SRT or VTT.

You don't need an extension or a YouTube account.

Why a YouTube Shorts transcript needs a tool

The YouTube Shorts player has no Show transcript button, and many Shorts have no captions at all. Paste the youtube.com/shorts/ link as it is. You don't need to rewrite it into a watch link.

Creator captions or AI transcription: which YouTube transcript you get

YouTube videos come in three kinds, and each is handled differently:

• The creator uploaded subtitles. We return those, because the creator wrote or checked them. This is the fastest and most exact YouTube transcript.
• Only YouTube's automatic captions. We don't use them. We transcribe the audio with Whisper speech recognition, which gives you punctuation and full sentences.
• No captions at all. Whisper transcribes the audio the same way, so you still get a YouTube transcript.

The spoken language is detected automatically. We don't translate, so a Spanish video gives you a Spanish YouTube transcript.

Compared with YouTube's own "Show transcript" panel

YouTube's transcript panel is fine for a quick look. Where it falls short:

• Downloads. The panel can only be copied by hand. Here you get TXT, SRT and VTT files.
• Missing panels. Many YouTube videos don't show one. We transcribe those from the audio.
• Clean text. The plain-text view joins the lines into one block, ready to paste.
• Shorts. The Shorts player hides the panel. We read the Short from its link.
• Phones. The panel is hard to use on mobile. This page works the same on any screen.

Step-by-step walkthroughs: how to get a YouTube Shorts transcript and, for regular videos, how to get a YouTube video transcript.

Download YouTube subtitles as SRT or VTT

When the creator uploaded their own subtitles, the YouTube transcript you get here is exactly those subtitles, with their original timings. Download them as SRT or VTT and load them into Premiere, CapCut, DaVinci Resolve or a web player.

We return one subtitle track: the one in the YouTube video's spoken language, or English if that's what the creator uploaded. If a video has no creator subtitles, we build the YouTube transcript from the audio, so the SRT and VTT files work either way.

A YouTube transcript downloader for any browser

No extension or app. Paste the link on a laptop or a phone and save the file: timestamps in SRT and VTT, clean text in TXT.

TranscriptClip vs Tactiq's YouTube transcript tool

Tactiq's YouTube transcript tool is a popular choice and works well for a quick read. How the two differ, based on what each tool's page says:

• Links: Tactiq's tool takes YouTube links. Ours also takes TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook and RedNote.
• Files: Tactiq's page lists a .txt download. We give you TXT, SRT and VTT, so the YouTube transcript doubles as a subtitle file.
• Price: Tactiq's YouTube tool costs nothing. We charge one credit per minute of video, from a monthly plan or a one-time pack.
• Length: we're built for YouTube Shorts and accept videos up to 10 minutes, so short clips rather than full lectures.

If you only need plain text from YouTube, either tool works. If you also want subtitle files or links from other platforms, use this one.

Who uses YouTube Shorts transcripts

• Creators study the hook and script of YouTube Shorts that took off, and reuse their own Shorts as captions, scripts or threads.
• Marketers read competitors' YouTube Shorts and product clips word for word.
• Editors start subtitles from an SRT file.
• Researchers and journalists check exactly what someone said in an interview clip.

For lectures and podcasts, YouTube's own transcript panel fits better, because we stop at 10 minutes.

YouTube transcript pricing

Each YouTube transcript costs one credit per minute of video, rounded up. Plans start at $5.90 a month with a monthly allowance of minutes, or you can buy a one-time credit pack that never expires.

A failed YouTube transcript costs nothing. That includes private, members-only, age-restricted and removed videos, and anything longer than 10 minutes.