YouTube Transcript: Free

Install the free YouTube Transcript extension from the Chrome Web Store, then open any YouTube video the way you normally would. The transcript panel appears automatically next to the player — there is nothing to configure, no account to create, and no separate website to visit. The panel shows the complete transcript with a timestamp for every line, generated from the video's captions. From there you can read the whole video as text, search within the transcript to find a specific phrase, click any line to jump the video to that exact moment, or copy the entire transcript as clean plain text in one click. Install once, and every YouTube video you open afterwards shows its transcript right on the page.

YouTube's own "Show transcript" button exists, but it is hidden behind extra clicks in the video description, and it offers no clean way to copy the text — selecting from it drags timestamps and formatting along. YouTube Transcript removes that friction: the full timestamped transcript appears automatically next to every video, so you never hunt for the button. You can search within the transcript, click any line to jump the video to that exact moment, and copy the entire cleaned-up text in one click — with [Music], [Applause], and other noise tokens stripped out, so the result reads like a document instead of a caption dump. It turns a hidden, read-only feature into a fast, copy-friendly workflow that is always one glance away.

Yes. YouTube Transcript works with both caption types YouTube provides: manual captions uploaded by the creator and automatic captions generated by YouTube's speech recognition. If a video has any transcript available on YouTube, the extension will display it in the panel with timestamps, and every feature — search, click-to-jump navigation, and one-click copying — works the same way for both types. Keep in mind that the text quality of auto-generated captions depends on YouTube's speech recognition: clear speech usually transcribes well, while heavy accents, background music, or overlapping speakers can introduce mistakes. The extension shows the captions exactly as YouTube provides them, so a video with rough auto-captions will have the same roughness in its transcript. Videos with no captions at all have no transcript to show.

There are two separate things here. The extension's own interface — buttons, menus, and settings — is available in six languages: English, German, French, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese. Transcripts themselves are not limited to that list: YouTube Transcript displays the transcript in whichever language the video's captions come in, whether they were added manually by the creator or auto-generated by YouTube. That means a Spanish lecture, a Japanese interview, or a Portuguese tutorial all work, as long as YouTube has captions for them. If a video offers captions in several languages, the transcript reflects the caption track the video provides. In practice, if you can enable captions on a video, the extension can show you its transcript — regardless of what language it is in.

Yes, YouTube Transcript is completely free, and there is no catch behind that word. There is no subscription, no trial period that expires, no premium tier holding back features, no hidden fees, and no usage limits — you can open as many transcripts as you want, every day. Every feature is included for everyone: the automatic transcript panel, timestamps, search within the transcript, click-to-jump navigation, and one-click copying of the cleaned-up text. There is also no account requirement, so the extension never asks for an email address or payment details at any point. Just install it from the Chrome Web Store and start using it immediately. The project is independent and self-funded, built and maintained by a solo developer — see the About page for the story behind it.

No. YouTube Transcript works entirely in your browser. Transcripts are fetched directly from YouTube on your device, and nothing is sent to any third-party server. No personal data is collected, stored on servers, or shared with anyone; there is no analytics, no tracking, and no advertising code. The extension never sees your browsing history, your YouTube account, or your identity. The only data it keeps is local: transcripts are cached on your own device so repeat visits to the same video load faster, and your settings are stored locally as well. That cache never leaves your machine and disappears if you clear your browser data or uninstall the extension. The full details are spelled out in the privacy policy on this site.

YouTube Transcript works with any video that has captions available on YouTube — which in practice covers the vast majority of content, since YouTube auto-generates captions for most videos in major languages. Both manually added and auto-generated captions are supported, in any language, across regular videos, long lectures, podcasts, and interviews. The exceptions are videos where YouTube itself has no captions: some very new uploads that have not been processed yet, videos where the creator has disabled captions, and content in languages YouTube's speech recognition does not cover. In those cases there is simply no transcript for the extension to display. A quick rule of thumb: if YouTube's own player can show captions for a video, YouTube Transcript can show you its full, timestamped, copyable transcript.

Absolutely. YouTube Transcript requires no account, no sign-up, and no email — there is nothing to register, nothing to verify, and nothing to log into. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store and it works immediately on the next YouTube video you open, with no onboarding steps in between. You do not need to be signed in to YouTube either: the transcript panel works the same whether you are logged into a Google account or browsing anonymously. This is a deliberate design choice — because there are no accounts, there is nothing to link your usage to, which is also why the extension can honestly promise no data collection. At no point will you hit a registration wall, an email prompt, or a "create profile to continue" screen.

YouTube Transcript currently supports Google Chrome and any Chromium-based browser that can install extensions from the Chrome Web Store. That includes Microsoft Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, and Vivaldi — in each of them, the same Chrome Web Store listing installs and works without extra steps. Firefox and Safari are not supported at the moment, because they use different extension platforms; if that changes, this FAQ will say so. On mobile, the standard Chrome app for Android and iOS does not support desktop extensions, so the extension is a desktop tool first. If you are on an unsupported browser, YouTube's built-in "Show transcript" button remains an alternative for reading captions, though without the search, click-to-jump, and clean one-click copy the extension adds.