To get a transcript of a Youtube video, open the video description, click 'more', then 'Show transcript'. Here is how that works on desktop and mobile, and how to download the transcript as a file when the built-in panel isn't enough.
How to Get a Transcript of a Youtube Video
To get a transcript of a Youtube video, open the video, click "...more" at the bottom of the description, then click "Show transcript". The full transcript opens in a panel beside the video, and clicking any line jumps to that moment.
Step by step:
- Open the video on youtube.com.
- Click "...more" at the bottom of the video description.
- Scroll down and click "Show transcript".
- The transcript appears in a panel with a timestamp on every line.
- To hide the timestamps, click the three-dot menu at the top of the panel and choose "Toggle timestamps".
That is genuinely all there is to it for most videos, and it costs nothing. The rest of this guide covers how the same feature works on your phone, what the built-in transcript can't do, and how to get a transcription from a Youtube video as a clean file when you need one.
Getting the Transcript on Your Phone
The steps in the Youtube app are nearly identical:
- Open the video in the Youtube app.
- Tap the video title (or the arrow next to it) to expand the description.
- Scroll to the bottom of the description and tap "Show transcript".
The panel behaves the same way as on desktop: every line has a timestamp, and tapping a line jumps the video to that point. It is a great way to skim a long video or re-find a quote you half remember.
What the Built-In Transcript Can't Do
The transcript panel is the right answer when you want to skim a video, follow along, or find a specific moment. It falls short the moment you want the text outside of Youtube:
- There is no download or copy button. You can select the panel text by hand and paste it elsewhere, but every timestamp comes along on its own line, so a one-hour video means a long manual cleanup.
- It only exists if the video has captions. Auto-captions cover most uploads, but freshly published videos, music-heavy videos, and some languages get no captions at all, and then there is no transcript panel to open.
- Auto-generated captions are rough. They have no punctuation, no sentence structure, and no speaker labels, and they routinely garble names, brands, and technical terms.
- Language options are limited. You only get the caption tracks the uploader provided, plus Youtube's own auto-translation, which inherits every mistake in the auto-captions underneath it.
If none of that matters for what you are doing, stop here: the built-in panel is all you need.
When You Need a File: Download the Transcript
When the transcript has to leave Youtube, to become notes, an article draft, a subtitle file, or input for an AI tool, a transcription service takes over. With YoutubeToText it works like this:
- Copy the video link from Youtube.
- Paste it into the box at youtubetotext.ai and click Transcribe.
- In about 2 minutes you get the full transcript with punctuation, speaker labels, and timestamps.
- Copy it with one click, or download it as TXT, SRT, or VTT.
Because the audio is transcribed fresh with ElevenLabs' Scribe model rather than read from Youtube's captions, this also works on videos that have no captions at all, and accuracy is above 95% on most videos. You can translate the result into 90+ languages, and videos up to 12 hours long come back as a single transcript. For a deeper look at the export options, see our guide on downloading a Youtube transcript.
Which Method Should You Use?
A quick rule of thumb:
- Use Youtube's built-in panel to skim a video, find a quote, or jump around a long tutorial. It is free, instant, and built in.
- Use a transcription tool when you need the text as a file, need punctuation and speaker labels, need a language Youtube doesn't offer, or the video has no captions. Our overview of every way to get the transcript of a Youtube video compares the options in more depth.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get the full transcript of a Youtube video?
The "Show transcript" panel always contains the complete transcript of the video, from start to finish, as long as the video has captions. If you want the full transcript as one clean document instead of a panel you have to scroll, paste the video link into YoutubeToText and download the whole thing as a TXT file.
Can I get a transcript of a Youtube video that has no captions?
Not from Youtube itself: without captions there is no transcript panel. A transcription tool solves this by listening to the audio directly instead of reading Youtube's captions, so it can produce a transcript for any public video, including brand-new uploads that have no auto-captions yet.
How do I get a Youtube transcript with timestamps?
The built-in panel shows a timestamp on every line by default, but you cannot export them. For a file that keeps the timing, download the transcript as an SRT or VTT subtitle file, or as a TXT with timestamps included, and you can toggle timestamps on or off before copying.
How can I get transcripts of multiple Youtube videos at once?
Youtube's panel is strictly one video at a time. To get transcripts of Youtube videos in bulk, use the YoutubeToText API, which lets you batch-process a whole channel or back catalogue programmatically.
Next time you need the text of a video, try the built-in panel first, and when you need something you can actually keep, paste the link into youtubetotext.ai and download the transcript in one click.
