Free tool
YouTube Subtitles Downloader
Download the caption file itself — SRT, VTT or TXT — in any language the video has. No account.
SRT, VTT or TXT — which one do you need?
All three downloads hold the same words. They differ in what rides along with them. SRT and VTT carry the timings, so a player knows when each line appears and for how long. TXT carries the words and nothing else.
| Format | Where it is accepted | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
| SRT (.srt) | Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, VLC, hardware players, and YouTube’s own caption upload | Positioning and styling — the file is numbered cues, timings and plain text |
| VTT (.vtt) | HTML5 <video>, web players, streaming platforms, and YouTube’s caption upload | Nothing a web player needs; some older desktop editors still expect SRT |
| TXT (.txt) | Anything that reads text — notes apps, documents, search, a chat assistant | The timings. A TXT file cannot be turned back into subtitles on its own |
So: SRT when the file goes into an editor or a player, VTT when it goes on a web page, TXT when a person or a model is going to read it. The TXT from this page is one flowing block of text — the cues joined together, with no timestamps and no line numbers.
Downloaded the wrong one? You do not have to fetch the video again — the free Subtitle Converter will convert between SRT, VTT and TXT from the file you already have. Need plain text from the .vtt? Convert the VTT to TXT and choose how often a timestamp appears. And if you need to hand-edit the timings, the blog walks through how an SRT file is structured.
How to download auto-generated (ASR) subtitles
When nobody uploads captions to a video, YouTube generates them itself with speech recognition — that is what “ASR” and “auto-generated” mean on the caption menu. To YouTube they are an ordinary caption track, which is why this downloader handles them exactly like a creator’s own: paste the link, and if the video has an automatic track, it is what you get.
The difference is in the text, not in the file. An automatic track is a machine’s best guess at the audio, so names, jargon, accents and anything spoken over music are where it slips. Line breaks fall where the recognizer paused rather than where a sentence ends, so an auto SRT usually needs a pass through an editor before it goes on a finished video. A track the author wrote and uploaded has none of that — it is exactly the text they intended.
If the video has more than one track, the result card says how many languages are available and names each one in the selector beside it, rather than leaving you to decode EN and RU. Those are the tracks that actually exist on the video. YouTube’s on-the-fly translation into dozens of further languages is a player setting rather than a caption track, so it is not in the list and this tool does not produce it. What the card cannot tell you is which track is automatic and which the author wrote: YouTube does not mark it in the data this tool receives, and guessing would be worse than saying nothing.
The video has no captions — what then?
Then there is nothing to download, and no subtitle downloader on the internet can change that. This tool fetches a caption track that YouTube already holds; if the creator uploaded none and YouTube made no automatic one, no track exists to fetch. From the outside the two cases look the same — an empty list of tracks — so nobody can tell you which one it was. YouTube names six reasons automatic captions fail, from audio still processing to overlapping speakers; we list them in why a YouTube video has no transcript.
What actually works: wait, if the video is fresh — automatic captions may not be ready right after upload; ask the creator to add captions, which YouTube Studio lets them upload, auto-sync or type; or, if the recording is yours, transcribe the audio file with a speech-to-text tool and save the result as SRT. If you only want the words rather than a subtitle file, and the video does have a track, you can read the transcript of a video that does have captions on screen instead.
How to Download YouTube Subtitles
Four steps to a subtitle file — no account needed.
- Paste the YouTube URLCopy the link of the video whose subtitles you want and paste it into the input field above.
- Choose the caption languageIf the video has more than one caption track, a language dropdown appears — pick the one you need. Most videos default to their original language or an auto-generated track.
- Download as SRT, VTT or TXTClick Download SRT for the most widely compatible subtitle format, Download VTT for the web-native format used by HTML5 video and most streaming platforms, or Download TXT for the plain words with no timestamps.
- Use the file anywhereDrop the .srt or .vtt file into Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, VLC, or upload it as a caption track on your own video. The .txt file pastes straight into a document, a search box, or a chat assistant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Paste the YouTube video URL into the input field above and click "Get Subtitles". Once the caption track loads, the result names every language the video has captions in — pick one if there is more than one — then click Download SRT, Download VTT, or Download TXT to save the file.
Yes, from the languages the video actually has caption tracks in. When there is more than one, a selector appears after the subtitles load, naming each language in words. YouTube's on-the-fly translation into dozens of further languages is a player feature that produces no file, so those languages are not in the list.
SRT (SubRip) is the most universally supported subtitle format, accepted by nearly every video editor and media player. VTT (WebVTT) is the web standard used by HTML5 video players and most streaming platforms, including YouTube's own caption upload feature. Both keep the timings. TXT is neither — the same words with the timings dropped, for reading, searching, or pasting into a document or a chat assistant. Download whichever the tool you're using requires; all three are available here.
Yes, completely free: no account, no sign-up, no watermark, nothing to pay. There is a fair-use cap of 15 video fetches per day from one IP address, which is what keeps the tool available to everyone. Once a video has loaded, you can download its SRT, VTT and TXT as many times as you like — those files are built in your browser and cost nothing to make.
Yes. The tool downloads whatever caption track YouTube has available, whether it was uploaded by the creator or automatically generated by YouTube's speech recognition. If a video has no captions at all, the tool will let you know.
This is not legal advice, and the answer turns on what you do next. Saving a caption track for your own use — reading it, searching it, translating it, making a video accessible — is the ordinary case and what this tool is built for. The captions remain the creator's work, so republishing them, or attaching them to a re-upload of the video, needs the same permission the video itself would need. YouTube's Terms of Service also restrict downloading content outside the features YouTube provides, so check the video's licence and those terms before you redistribute anything.
Because the timings are measured against the version on YouTube. If your copy has a different intro, a sponsor segment cut out, a few seconds trimmed off the head, or a different edit altogether, every cue lands early or late by the same amount. When the whole file drifts by a constant, open it in the free Subtitle Converter on this site, set the timestamp offset in seconds, and export it again — there is no need to fetch the video a second time. When the drift grows as the video plays, the two versions are different cuts and no single offset will line them up.
Yes. YouTube Studio's subtitle upload accepts both .srt and .vtt, which is exactly what the first two buttons produce. Add the file under Subtitles on your own video, choose the language, and YouTube uses it in place of its automatic track. The TXT download carries no timings, so it is not a subtitle file and YouTube will not accept it.
The video is never downloaded — not the picture, not the audio. What is fetched is the caption track YouTube already publishes, and that text is held in a cache for 30 days, keyed by the video ID, so the next request for the same video does not send YouTube another one. Nothing in it is tied to you: the tool needs no account, and the cache holds a public caption track rather than a record of who asked for it. A per-day request count is kept against the requesting IP address for the fair-use cap and expires at the end of that day.
Yes. Use the free Subtitle Converter on this site to convert your downloaded SRT or VTT file into plain text, Markdown, JSON, or the other subtitle format, and to shift timestamps for sync.
