Get any YouTube video's transcript
Paste a link, get the full transcript. Free, no signup. Copy it or download it as text.
How to get a YouTube transcript
- Copy the video's URL from the address bar or the Share button.
- Paste it above and press Get transcript.
- Copy the text, or download it as a
.txtfile with or without timestamps.
The tool reads the caption track YouTube already generated for the video — the same data behind the "Show transcript" panel on YouTube, without the clicking, scrolling, and one-line-at-a-time copying. It works with manual captions and auto-generated ones, in whatever language the uploader provided.
What people use transcripts for
- Skimming before watching — a 40-minute talk is a 4-minute read.
- Quoting accurately — pull exact wording for notes, essays, or articles.
- Studying — search lecture videos for the term you need instead of scrubbing.
- Feeding AI — paste a transcript into a chatbot to ask questions about the video. (Marqly's chat tab does this in place, grounded in the transcript.)
The faster way: transcripts on the watch page
If you do this more than occasionally, the copy-paste loop gets old. The Marqly extension adds an AI card next to every YouTube video with a playback-synced transcript tab (one-click copy), a streaming AI summary, and a chat tab that answers questions from the transcript. Saving the video keeps the transcript attached, so semantic search can find "that video where he explains index funds with the buckets" months later. See also: every way to get a YouTube transcript.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get the transcript of a YouTube video?
Paste the video URL into the tool above and it fetches the caption track YouTube already has for the video. You can copy the whole transcript or download it as a text file. For transcripts on every video without leaving YouTube, the Marqly extension adds a playback-synced transcript tab right on the watch page.
Why does it say no captions were found?
Some videos have captions disabled by the uploader, and very new uploads may not have auto-captions yet. If the video shows captions on YouTube but the tool fails, YouTube may be rate-limiting our server — the Marqly extension reads captions directly in your browser, which avoids that entirely.
Does this work with auto-generated captions?
Yes. If the uploader added manual captions we prefer those; otherwise the tool falls back to YouTube’s auto-generated track. Auto-captions occasionally mis-hear words, so double-check names and technical terms against the video.
Is this really free?
Yes — no signup, no watermark, no daily paywall. It exists because Marqly’s extension does this (plus AI summaries and transcript-grounded chat) on every YouTube page, and we’d rather show you than tell you.