YouTube · Free tool

YouTube Transcript Generator

Paste a YouTube video link to get its full transcript as plain text, ready to copy or download as a .txt file. The text comes from the captions YouTube publishes for the video, uploaded by the creator or auto-generated.

3 free tries / day across all free tools · then create an account to continue

How to use it

1
Paste the YouTube URL
Copy a public YouTube video link into the box above.
2
Run the tool
Click the button — we read the captions YouTube publishes for the video.
3
Read the result
Read the full, clean transcript text.
4
Copy or download
Copy to clipboard or save as a .txt file — use it anywhere.

Prefer to do it in code?

The same transcript is available from the Captapi API in clean JSON — one request, no scraping.

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/youtube/transcript?url=YOUR_URL" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."

Get a free API key →

Frequently asked questions

How do I get the transcript of a YouTube video?+

Copy the video's URL from the address bar or the Share button, paste it into the box above and click Get transcript. The full text appears in a few seconds; copy it or download it as a .txt file.

Is this YouTube transcript tool free?+

Yes. You get 3 free lookups per day across Captapi's free tools, with no sign-up and no extension to install.

Where does the transcript come from?+

From the captions YouTube publishes for the video: either uploaded by the creator or auto-generated by YouTube. The tool does not generate text from speech, so the result matches the video's own captions.

What if a video has no transcript?+

Some videos have no captions, which is common for music videos and long live streams. The tool tells you when there is no caption track. For those videos, the API's /v1/youtube/audio-transcript endpoint transcribes the audio, priced per minute.

Which language is the transcript in?+

The tool returns the video's default caption track. Through the API you can ask for a specific language with the language parameter, and the response lists the caption languages the video has.

Can I copy or download the transcript?+

Yes. Copy the full text to your clipboard with one click, or download it as a .txt file.

Can I get YouTube transcripts in code?+

Yes. GET /v1/youtube/transcript returns the full text plus timestamped segments as JSON for 1 credit; a video with no captions returns 404 and costs nothing. A free account includes 100 credits.

The free YouTube transcript tool, explained

Every day, millions of hours of video are published on YouTube, and almost none of it is searchable, quotable, or easy to repurpose as text. This free YouTube transcript tool fixes that: paste any public YouTube video link and get a clean, copy-ready transcript in seconds — no software to install, no account to create, and nothing to pay. Whether you are a creator, marketer, student, journalist, or researcher, turning YouTube video into text unlocks workflows that video alone can't.

How to transcribe a YouTube video

It takes three steps. First, copy the URL of the YouTube video you want to transcribe. Second, paste it into the box above and press the button. Third, read the full transcript, then copy it to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file. The text is the caption track YouTube publishes for the video, in the video's own caption language.

Why turn YouTube videos into text?

Repurpose content. Turn a single video into a blog post, newsletter, thread, or set of short clips — text is the raw material for every other format.
Save time. Skim or search the full text instead of scrubbing through the timeline.
Improve accessibility. Captions and transcripts make your content usable by deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and by anyone watching without sound.
Boost SEO. Search engines can't watch video, but they can index text — publishing transcripts helps your content get found.
Research and study. Quote sources accurately, build notes, and analyze what creators are actually saying.

Accuracy, languages, and limits

The transcript is the caption track YouTube publishes for the video: captions the creator uploaded, or captions YouTube generated automatically. Uploaded captions are usually exact; auto-generated ones can miss names, punctuation and words in noisy audio. When a video has no caption track — common for music videos and long live streams — the tool says so instead of guessing. It works for public videos only.

Free tool vs. the Captapi API

This page is the no-login way to transcribe one video at a time. If you need to do this at scale — inside an app, a content pipeline, or an AI agent — the same capability is available through the Captapi API. A single /v1/youtube/transcript request returns clean, structured JSON with the full transcript and per-segment timestamps. The API is also connectable via an MCP server, a CLI, and an n8n community node, so you can wire YouTube transcripts into almost any stack.

Frequently quoted answer

How do you get a transcript of a YouTube video for free? Paste the video's public URL into a YouTube transcript tool like this one and it returns the text in seconds — free, with no sign-up — which you can then copy or download. For automation, call the Captapi /v1/youtube/transcript endpoint, which returns the same data as JSON.

API key = far cheaper automation

Free tries are capped across these tools. With your own key, the same endpoints bill your credits (cache hits free) — build bots, n8n flows, and pipelines without the daily wall.