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Burrows Tools

YouTube Transcript Generator

Paste a YouTube URL or video id and get the video's transcript as plain text you can read, search, quote, or feed to something else. It is far faster than watching a forty-minute talk to find one paragraph, and it makes videos usable for people who would rather read, need to translate the content, or want to pull quotes for notes or a summary. The transcript comes from the caption track YouTube already publishes for the video, so quality depends on the video: creator-written captions read cleanly, while automatic captions have no punctuation and occasional mistakes on names and jargon. Videos with captions disabled cannot be transcribed by any tool, and this page will say so plainly instead of returning an empty result.

Paste a link and the transcript appears here. Videos with captions turned off cannot be transcribed by any tool, and this page will say so rather than returning an empty result.

How to use the youtube transcript generator

  1. Copy the YouTube video link from your browser or the share button.
  2. Paste it into the box — a bare video id works too.
  3. Wait a moment while the caption track is fetched and converted to plain text.
  4. Copy the transcript or download it as a .txt file.

Frequently asked questions

Why does a video return no transcript?
Because it has no caption track. Creators can disable captions, and very new, very short, or music-only videos often have none. Without captions there is nothing to extract.
Are automatic captions accurate?
Mostly, for clear speech in a supported language, but they arrive without punctuation and get names, acronyms, and technical terms wrong. Creator-supplied captions are far better when they exist.
Does it work for private or unlisted videos?
Unlisted videos work if you have the link. Private and members-only videos do not, because their captions are not publicly available.
Can I transcribe videos in other languages?
Yes, when the video carries a caption track in that language. English is preferred when several tracks are available.
Is it legal to use a transcript?
Reading, quoting, and summarising are ordinary uses, but the video and its captions remain the creator's copyrighted work. Republishing a full transcript without permission is not something we can advise.

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