YouTube Transcript Generator — Free, No Login

Paste a video link, get the full transcript with timestamps in seconds. Copy it or download as SRT, VTT, or TXT — this step costs us nothing, so it's free for everyone.

Why is the transcript free but the summary isn't?

Pulling the captions YouTube already generated for a video costs nothing — it's a public request, no AI involved. Turning that transcript into a summary, translating it, or answering questions about it requires an actual AI model call, which has a real cost. That's why this page gives you the raw transcript for free, and the AI features live in the extension.

Also useful: a version built to keep going on videos with broken caption tracks, download the same captions as a TXT, MD or PDF file, turn that transcript into an AI summary.

Is this really free?

Yes — extracting a video's public captions costs us nothing, so we don't charge for it or ask you to log in. We do apply a daily per-IP limit to stop abuse.

Does the video need to have captions?

Yes. This tool reads the captions YouTube already has for the video (auto-generated or uploaded). If a video has no captions at all, there is nothing to extract.

Can I get an AI summary here too?

Not on this free page — AI summaries cost real money to generate, so that's a feature of the SmartTranscript extension, not this no-login tool.