Get the transcript of any YouTube video
Paste a URL and get the full spoken text in seconds. Copy it or download it as a text file. Works with watch, youtu.be, Shorts, and mobile links. No sign-up.
Tool briefWhat this tool offersPaste a public YouTube link and get the full spoken text as clean paragraphs, ready to copy or download with no sign-up.
What it does
- It returns the full spoken text of a public video as paragraphs, without timestamps.
- It works with watch, youtu.be, Shorts, mobile and embed links, including youtube-nocookie.
- It offers one-click copy, or download as a .txt file named after the video.
- It also transcribes X.com video posts.
Why it is different
- YouTube transcripts come from the video caption track, not from speech recognition.
- X.com videos go through a separate path that transcribes the audio.
- The API also returns the title, the channel, the duration and the character count.
How to use it
- Paste the video link.
- Wait while the caption track is read and joined into paragraphs.
- Copy the text or download it as a .txt file.
You provide: A public YouTube link, or an X.com video post link.
You get: Plain text paragraphs and a .txt download, and JSON with the transcript and video details via the API.
Limits, API and MCP details are in the full brief: /youtube-transcript.md
Use cases
What people use a YouTube transcript tool for
Paste the link to get the full spoken text as paragraphs without timestamps. Copy it in one click or download a ".txt" named after the video from the caption track, not from speech recognition.
Send a video that has captions to the API and receive JSON with the transcript plus title, channel, duration and character count. Each call costs 1 credit, or $0.001 with x402.
Reuse the same link in "YouTube to Article" and "YouTube to Clips" for other formats. The Clips path picks quotes with timestamps and tweet copy.
Paste an X.com video post link for a separate path that transcribes the audio. Without an account you get 3 YouTube transcripts and 2 X.com transcripts a day.
Paste the link to get the full spoken text as paragraphs without timestamps. Copy it in one click or download a ".txt" named after the video from the caption track, not from speech recognition.
- Andrej Karpathy59:4864,352Caption track
- AI Engineer20:0215,659Caption track
- Bloomberg Television26:4026,295Caption track
- Bloomberg Television1:34:4070,388Caption track
The exact words
- Paragraphs, no timestamps
- Copy or download as .txt
How it works
Paste the YouTube URL
Any public video, Short, or youtu.be link. We read the video ID from watch, mobile, and embed links too.
We pull the captions
The spoken-word transcript is fetched from the video captions, cleaned up, and joined into readable text.
Copy or download
Read it on the page, copy the whole transcript in one click, or download it as a .txt file.
What you get
Full clean transcript
The complete spoken text of the video, joined into readable paragraphs with no timestamps in the way.
Every link format
Works with youtube.com/watch, youtu.be, Shorts, and mobile share links. Paste whatever you have.
One-click copy
Grab the entire transcript to your clipboard instantly. Paste into notes, docs, or an AI prompt.
Download as .txt
Save the transcript as a text file named after the video. Keep it, search it, or feed it to other tools.
youtubetranscript.com clones vs StartupHub YouTube Transcript
Generic clone column describes typical free transcript dump sites. We have not benchmarked every competitor head-to-head.
| youtubetranscript.com clones | Your YouTube Transcript | |
|---|---|---|
| Link formats | watch only | watch, youtu.be, Shorts, mobile, embed, youtube-nocookie + X.com video posts |
| Output | Timestamped list 0:12 text | Clean paragraphs, no timestamps in the way: readable, copy-paste ready |
| Timestamps option | No | No by default: join into paragraphs; for exact times use YouTube to Clips fuzzy-matched start/end |
| Copy | Select text | One-click copy entire transcript |
| Download | No / txt with random name | .txt named after video: folder stays searchable |
| Free | Unlimited but slow | 3/day YouTube + 2/day X.com free, no sign-up: metered because uncached fetch costs |
| X.com | No | Yes: separate transcription path |
Need exact clip timestamps? YouTube to Clips fuzzy-matches start and end times to spoken words.
Also searched as
YouTube transcript downloader, youtube to text converter, get transcript of youtube video with timestamps removed.
YouTube to text, in 30 seconds
YouTube Transcript takes a public YouTube link and gives you the spoken words as readable text. It accepts standard watch links, youtu.be short links, Shorts and embed links, and it works on X.com video posts through a separate path. It reads the caption track the video already publishes, joins the timecoded fragments into paragraphs rather than leaving a column of timestamps in your way, and lets you copy the whole thing in one click or download it as a .txt named after the video. No account needed. It is metered rather than unlimited: 3 transcripts a day on the free tier, and 2 for X.com, which costs more to produce.
The output
What you get back
A caption track arrives as hundreds of timecoded fragments. That is fine for a player and useless for reading, quoting or pasting into anything.
Raw caption track
0:00 in this video i'll show you 0:04 how we cut our database 0:07 costs by about sixty percent 0:12 the first mistake most teams 0:15 make is provisioning for peak
What this tool returns
In this video I'll show you how we cut our database costs by about sixty percent. The first mistake most teams make is provisioning for peak.
One click to copy, or download as a .txt named after the video.
Questions
Straight answers
Which YouTube link formats work?
Standard watch links, youtu.be short links, Shorts, and embed links including youtube-nocookie. Mobile share links work as well, because they carry the same watch path with the video id in it.
Does it work for X.com videos?
Yes, through a separate path. X does not publish a caption track the way YouTube does, so the audio has to be pulled and transcribed, which costs real compute. That one is capped at 2 a day on the free tier rather than 3.
Does the video need captions?
For YouTube, yes. We read the caption track the video already carries rather than transcribing the audio ourselves, which is what makes it instant and free. A video with no captions has nothing to read.
Can I download the transcript?
Yes, as a .txt file named after the video, so a folder of them stays searchable later. There is also a one-click copy for pasting straight into notes, a document, or a prompt.
Are there timestamps?
Not by default. The caption track arrives as timecoded fragments and we join them into readable paragraphs, because a wall of "0:12" markers is worse to read and worse to paste. If you want precise timings, YouTube to Clips returns exact start and end times matched to the spoken words.
Do I need to sign up?
No account is needed. It is metered rather than unlimited: 3 transcripts a day on the free tier, because every uncached fetch costs us something. Signing in on a paid plan raises the cap.
Is this a YouTube to text converter?
That is exactly what it is. Paste a link, get the spoken words as text you can read, copy, download, or feed into something else.
Same video, more outputs
YouTube to Clips
Same link, but AI picks the moments worth clipping and returns exact timestamps, tweet copy and a deeplink.
YouTube to Blog Post
Same link, turned into a publishable 750-word blog post with HTML, Markdown and JSON-LD.
AI Video Maker
The loop in reverse: an article back into a narrated video.
More free tools
Turn that video into clips, too.
Got the transcript? Paste the same URL into YouTube to Clips and get AI-picked viral moments with quotes, timestamps, and tweet copy.
Other tools
- Article to YouTubeTurn an article URL into a narrated explainer with captions. Use it when a post should also exist as a video without a separate production pass.
- YouTube to Blog PostPaste a public video and get a structured post in HTML, Markdown, and JSON-LD, with the embed kept. Use it to turn a talk into a page you can rank.
- YouTube to ClipsPick the moments worth posting from a captioned video, with timestamps and copy. Use it when you need Shorts or quote cards, not a full rewrite.
