How to get a transcript of a YouTube video
There are two ways. YouTube has a transcript panel built in and it costs nothing to use — that is worth knowing first. A tool is faster when you want translation, a cleaner read, or notes generated from the transcript.
Free · no sign-up · unlimited
How it works
Open the video on desktop
Under the video, click the three-dot menu next to the Share button, then choose Show transcript. A panel opens on the right with the full text.
Turn timestamps off if you want
Inside that panel, the three-dot menu has a Toggle timestamps option, which makes the text easier to read straight through.
On mobile, open the description
Tap the video description to expand it, then look for the Show transcript button. It is not available for every video.
Use a tool when YouTube's panel isn't enough
Paste the link above to get the same text with translation into 50+ languages and the option to generate summaries and notes.
What YouTube's own panel does and doesn't do
YouTube's built-in transcript is genuinely useful and underused. It is free, it is right there, and it is the same caption data any tool reads. If all you need is to find a moment in a video you are already watching, it is the fastest option and nothing else is required.
Its limits show up as soon as you want to do something with the text. There is no translation of the transcript itself — only of the captions displayed over the video. It only exists on desktop and, patchily, in the mobile app. It cannot summarise, and it gives you no way to work with several videos at once.
| YouTube's panel | This tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Free to read |
| Sign-in | Not needed | Not needed |
| Translate the transcript | No | 50+ languages |
| AI summary and notes | No | Paid tier |
| Works on mobile web | Limited | Yes |
When the Show transcript button is missing
If you cannot find the option, it is almost always because the video has no caption track rather than because you are looking in the wrong place. Captions may be disabled by the creator, absent because the audio has little speech, or still being generated on a recently uploaded video.
Age-restricted, private and unlisted videos also do not expose transcripts publicly, and no tool can work around that.
Transcripts, subtitles and closed captions are not the same
These three get used interchangeably, and occasionally the difference matters.
Subtitles are timed text shown over the video, assuming the viewer can hear — they carry dialogue and little else. Closed captions assume the viewer cannot hear, so alongside dialogue they mark speaker changes and relevant non-speech sound. A transcript is the whole text as a document, detached from playback.
On YouTube all three come from the same underlying caption track, which is why the transcript panel appears exactly when captions are available and disappears when they are not. What differs is presentation, not source.
The practical consequence: if captions show during playback, a transcript exists. If the captions button is greyed out, no tool will produce one, because there is nothing to read.
What common problems actually mean
A handful of situations account for nearly every complaint about getting a transcript, and each has a specific cause worth recognising.
Text appears but is nonsense in places. The caption track was automatically generated and the audio was difficult — background music, an accent the model handles poorly, or specialist vocabulary. Nothing is broken; you are seeing the ceiling of speech recognition on that recording.
The transcript stops partway through. Almost always a very recent upload where automatic captioning is still processing the later part of the video. Waiting and retrying resolves it.
The transcript is in the wrong language. Some videos carry a caption track in a language other than the one being spoken, usually because a translated track was uploaded and the automatic one was not. Selecting a language explicitly resolves it.
Nothing appears at all, for any tool and for YouTube's own panel. There is no caption track, and no tool can create one from outside the video.
Recognising which of these you are looking at saves the time otherwise spent trying a second tool that will return exactly the same result.
What this can't do
- Neither method invents a transcript for a video that has no caption track.
- Automatic captions carry recognition errors regardless of how you read them.
- YouTube's mobile transcript panel is inconsistent across app versions.
- This tool displays transcripts for reading and does not offer export.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the transcript button on YouTube?
- On desktop, under the video: the three-dot menu next to Share, then Show transcript. On mobile, expand the description and look for Show transcript.
Why is there no transcript option?
- That video has no caption track — usually because captions were disabled, the audio has little speech, or the video is private or age-restricted.
Can I get a transcript on my phone?
- The YouTube app offers it inconsistently. This tool runs in a mobile browser and works the same as on desktop.
Is a transcript the same as subtitles?
- They come from the same caption data. Subtitles appear over the video a line at a time; a transcript shows the whole thing as text.
Do I need to be signed in to YouTube?
- No, for either method.