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YouTube to Transcript

Paste a YouTube URL and get the full timestamped transcription in seconds.

Paste a YouTube link or an 11 character video ID, youtube.com/watch?v=... or youtu.be/...

Free to use. No signup required.

Uses YouTube caption language codes. Choose the track you want when a video offers several languages.

Transcriptions to date

542,204+ transcriptions.

Used by real teams

Creators, educators, and researchers rely on it for fast, repeatable transcripts.

Powered by YouTube captions

Pulls available caption tracks to keep results clean and aligned to the video.

Trust and privacy

  • No storage of video or transcript data
  • No account required to transcribe
  • Encrypted in transit

YouTube Transcript Generator: Free & Instant

PelicanTools is a free YouTube Transcript Generator which generates a clean and perfectly time stamped transcript of any YouTube video in seconds. The youtube transcript is free, no software or sign up required, just paste in a YouTube URL. You can request a transcript of YouTube's own caption track for any of their videos for research, note taking or any other purpose you may have, and this tool will do the trick by styling it up into easy to copy readable blocks.

  • Get a transcript from YouTube in one click
  • Works with auto generated and manual caption tracks
  • Supports dozens of caption languages

Download YouTube Captions & Subtitles

Want to download YouTube subtitle file or extract a YouTube subtitle? On PelicanTools, you just paste in any link to YouTube, and yt transcript comes right up on the screen, ready for copy and paste. From this point you can copy and paste in Notepad, Google Docs, or within any editor to save it as a text file. The yt to transcript workflow takes seconds: No browser extension, no download manager, just a clear download of captions from YouTube when you need it.

  • Caption download from YouTube without extensions
  • Download transcript from YouTube as plain text
  • Works on desktop and mobile browsers

YouTube Video to Text Converter

If you need spoken content in written form, then PelicanTools is a video to text converter for YouTube videos. Within seconds, the full transcription of the YouTube video is displayed as copyable text, there is no waiting and no AI processing fees. The entire video transcription is available to copy as text within seconds, with no waiting and no fees for AI processing. It is a video to text converter for YouTube, which takes the caption information already provided by YouTube's own speech recognition service, so that the output text remains in sync with what is actually spoken in the video. For any of these or other purposes, use it to retrieve the transcript of an online YouTube video for blog posts, notes for a lecture, show notes for a podcast or for a video that needs to be subtitled for a different platform or for compliance purposes. Everyone from content creators to journalists, educators to developers relies on this type of transcribe for YouTube video to text workflow and saves hours of hard work.

  • Blog posts and article research
  • Lecture notes and study guides
  • Podcast show notes and SEO
  • Subtitle files for other platforms
  • Legal and compliance documentation
  • Repurposing video content to written form

Built for Accessibility, Useful for Everyone

Closed captions and transcriptions are vital for deaf people and hard of hearing people watching with a second language, for students to read along with the lecture, and for workers in noisy or quiet environments to read along without having to listen to the audio. Any person, regardless of their ability to hear, or their context, can read, search and share the spoken words of any video. The accessibility benefit becomes available the moment someone needs it, there is no software installation, no account and no charge.

  • Deaf and hard of hearing viewers
  • Non native language learners
  • Students reviewing lecture recordings
  • Silent or noise sensitive environments
  • Screen reader and assistive technology workflows
  • ADA and WCAG caption compliance documentation

Customer reviews

Loved by teams and creators

4.5 out of 5
Based on 49 reviews

Maya Patel

Verified user

Nails YouTube transcripts with excellent accuracy and speed.

Jordan Kim

Verified user

Speaker turns and timestamps are spot on.

Luis Herrera

Verified user

Perfect for long technical videos and lectures.

Avery Chen

Verified user

Consistently accurate on interviews and panels.

Nora Singh

Verified user

Clean formatting and near zero cleanup needed.

Ethan Brooks

Verified user

Handles accents well and keeps alignment tight.

Zoe Ramirez

Verified user

Great for turning YouTube content into drafts.

Riley Morgan

Verified user

Super accurate on tutorials with heavy jargon.

Sofia Alvarez

Verified user

Best YouTube transcription tool I have used.

Frequently asked questions