How to transcribe a video
How to transcribe a video for free: add the file or its link, choose the language, and download the text or subtitles.
Where the video is decides how to transcribe a video here: paste its link if it's online, or drop the file into the box below if it's on your phone or computer. Either way, one tap starts it, and the transcript opens on its own page, ready to copy or to download as text or subtitles.
Step by step
- For a video on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or another site, copy its link. Tap Paste in the box below, or touch and hold the box and choose Paste, then tap Get transcript.
- For a video on your phone or computer, drop it on Drop a video or audio file here, or tap the box and choose it. MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM and M4V all work.
- If the video already has subtitles inside it, the box offers Use its subtitles. Tap Transcribe the speech instead if you want the words as they were spoken.
- Check the file name in the message that appears, then tap Transcribe it.
- If the next page says "Working on your transcript", keep it open. It moves to the transcript by itself when it's ready.
- Tap Copy for the text, Download Plain text for a file, or SRT under Subtitles for a file with times.
- For the text in another language, tap Translate, choose the language under Translate into, and tap Translate again.
Or, if the video is on your computer:
It uses your free daily minutes, and you confirm before it starts. A subtitle file dropped here is converted instead.
- File
- Format
- Cues
- Size
Read as — change it
The preview below re-renders as soon as you change this.
This format stores times as frame numbers, so it has no meaning without a rate. We don't guess one.
Nothing has changed yet.
No cues to show yet.
Paste the link instead of downloading the video
A video that's already online doesn't need saving to your phone first. Its link is all the box needs, so there's no large file to store, and links from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Vimeo all work. Those sites also have pages of their own for links, such as TikTok transcript.
Clear audio beats a long video
Speech close to the microphone comes out better than speech under music or crowd noise. For a long video where only one part matters, cut that part with the audio cutter, which takes the sound from a video too, and drop the shorter file in the box.
Choosing the spoken language
There's no language to set: the box detects the spoken language for you. When the whole video is in one language, that language's own page expects it, so a short clip isn't mistaken for a neighbouring language. Spanish transcription is one, and it takes video files too; the others are under transcription by language.
Subtitles instead of plain text
For subtitles, choose SRT or WebVTT under Subtitles on the transcript page, and every line keeps its start and end time. SRT is the one most video editors and players take; WebVTT is the format web players need. To put them on the video itself, the auto subtitle generator makes subtitles from a video, lets you fix any line, and saves an MP4 with them burned in.
Questions
Can I transcribe a video on my phone?
Yes. Tap the box and choose the video from your phone, or paste its link if it's on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. There's no app to install.
Which video files work?
MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM and M4V. The box also takes a video's sound on its own, as an MP3, M4A or WAV file.
Is it free to transcribe a video here?
Yes, and there's no account to make.
Does it tell speakers apart?
No. You get the words in the order they were said, without speaker names.