How to download subtitles from YouTube

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Lifehacker explains why you need to save subtitles from YouTube videos and shares the easiest ways to do it.

Why

Downloading subtitles to your device will be useful if:

• you are used to downloading foreign videos in advance in order to watch them later offline, and at the same time you do not perfectly know the original language;
• you do not need a video sequence, but a transcript, because the same TED talks can simply be read without spending precious megabytes on downloading the video;
• you are studying a foreign language and it is useful for you to parse the spelling of unfamiliar phrases and dialogues.

How to download subtitles

1. Through third party web services

The easiest way to download subtitles is the DownSub service, which Lifehacker already wrote about in the YouTube review of useful hacks. All you need to do is paste the video link on the DownSub homepage and click on the download button. This can be done in both desktop and mobile browsers on iOS or Android.

Depending on the video, the service will offer to download subtitles in any of the available languages. And if the text in the required language is not in the list, you can download the automatically generated translation. It is far from ideal, but still there is such a possibility.

Subtitles are downloaded as a file with the SRT extension. It can be opened in most modern media players or in a text editor.

If you need to download a video with subtitles, you can use the YouSubtitles service. It works in the same way as DownSub, except that in addition to the SRT file, you can download the video itself.

2. Through the regular YouTube function

YouTube has a function to output the full text transcript of the video, with which you can copy the subtitles from the browser like plain text.

To save subtitles in this way, click on the three-dot icon, which is located immediately below the built-in player, and click "View video transcript".

When subtitles appear to the right of the player, select the desired language under them, select all available text and copy it using the Ctrl + C combination. After that, the transcript can be pasted into any text editor.