YouTube Transcript
Downloader
Paste any YouTube URL and get the full transcript in seconds. Copy the text or export as TXT, SRT, or VTT.
How It Works
Paste a YouTube URL
Any watch, shorts, or youtu.be link.
Pick a language
We try your choice, then fall back to English.
Copy or export
Grab plain text, or download TXT / SRT / VTT.
What makes it more likely to work
The tool pulls existing YouTube captions — it works best when the video already has them. Here’s how to check, and what to do if it doesn’t.
- ✓The video has a “CC” button on YouTube.
Open the video on YouTube and look for the CC icon in the player. If it’s there, captions exist — the tool will usually succeed whether they’re manual or auto-generated.
- ✓Pick a language that’s actually available.
Click the gear icon on YouTube → Subtitles to see which languages the video offers. If the creator only uploaded English captions and you pick Slovak, no transcript will come back.
- ✓Public, non-age-restricted videos.
Private, members-only, or age-gated videos can’t be accessed. Unlisted public videos with captions usually work.
- !No captions at all? Then there’s nothing to fetch.
Some creators disable captions, and freshly uploaded videos can take a few hours before YouTube’s auto-captions appear. Come back later or try another video.
- !Hit an error on a video that clearly has CC?
YouTube sometimes rate-limits our server. Wait a minute and retry, or try a different video — the next request usually goes through.
Got the words.
Now get the visuals.
SkySnail uses AI to generate scroll-stopping thumbnails for your YouTube videos in seconds. No Photoshop, no designers, no hassle. Just paste your video link and get professional thumbnails instantly.
- Turn transcript ideas into scroll-stopping thumbnails
- Pull hooks and titles from your video's own language
- Export in 4K for YouTube, Shorts, Reels & TikTok
- Use your own face with custom avatars
5 free credits included — no credit card required
SkySnail AI Thumbnail GeneratorFrequently Asked Questions
Paste any YouTube URL into this tool and click “Get transcript.” We extract the captions via our backend and show them instantly. You can copy the full text or download it as TXT, SRT, or VTT — no sign-up required.
If a video has neither manual captions nor YouTube's auto-generated ones, no transcript can be produced — YouTube does not expose the audio publicly. You'll see a “Transcript not available” message; try a different video or language.
All languages YouTube serves captions in. You can list multiple languages in priority order and the tool will return the first one that exists for the video.
TXT is plain text with no timing — good for summarising or pasting into ChatGPT. SRT and VTT include timestamps for each line, ready to drop into video editors like Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, or CapCut, or to use as closed captions.
Yes, to keep the tool free we limit each visitor to a few transcripts per minute. If you hit the limit, wait a moment and try again.
Auto-generated captions are usually ~90–95% accurate for clear English speech and less for heavily accented or noisy audio. Manually uploaded captions are near-perfect. We return whatever YouTube serves.
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Open toolStop Downloading.
Start Creating.
Why download and tweak someone else’s assets when you can generate stunning, click-worthy originals with AI? Try SkySnail free today.
5 free credits — no credit card required