Free YouTube transcript generator
Get the transcript of any YouTube video.
Paste a link. Watch Any Video listens to the whole video and writes out every word, with timestamps and speakers, even when the video has no captions. Then ask Claude about it.
Public YouTube videos, including Shorts and past live streams, up to three hours.
What you get
- Every word
- Written out in the language that is spoken, not translated or summarised.
- Timestamps you can click
- A new line at least every 30 seconds; each time opens the video at that moment.
- Who is speaking
- Speaker changes are marked, with names only when they are said or shown on screen.
- No captions needed
- It listens to the audio, so it works on videos with no captions or poor automatic ones.
A transcript is only what was said
Add Watch Any Video to Claude and Claude can watch the video itself: the slides, the demo, the on-screen text and the moment something happens. Ask anything, and every answer comes with timestamps.
Add to Claude for freeWorks in ChatGPT and Cursor too. Setup
- “Turn this lecture into study notes, with the time each topic starts.”
- “Quote exactly what the speaker says about pricing, with timestamps.”
- “What is shown on the slides while they explain the second point?”
- “Translate the transcript into Spanish and keep the timestamps.”
Questions
- How do I get the transcript of a YouTube video?
- Paste the video's link above and press Get transcript. You get every word with timestamps, which you can copy or download as a text file. YouTube also has its own transcript (open the description and choose Show transcript), but only on videos with captions, and automatic captions come without punctuation or speakers.
- Is it free?
- Yes, with a free account: 60 minutes of video a month, shared with the Claude connector. A 10-minute video uses 10 minutes. If anyone has transcribed the same video in the last 30 days, you get it instantly and it uses none of your minutes. Pro is $8 a month for 20 hours.
- Why do I need to sign in?
- The transcript is written by Google's Gemini model, which costs money for every minute of video and may only be offered to adults. An account lets us give you free minutes and keep the service for people aged 18 and over. Signing in with Google takes one click.
- Does it work on videos without captions?
- Yes. It listens to the audio rather than copying YouTube's captions, so it works on videos that have no captions at all.
- How accurate is it?
- On our test videos (a commencement speech, a phone review and a Turkish talk), the transcript differed from YouTube's own captions on 2 to 5 words in 100, and timestamps were within about 10 seconds. Song lyrics over loud music are much less reliable.
- Which languages does it support?
- It writes the transcript in the language that is spoken. To get it in another language, ask Claude to translate it.
- Which videos work?
- Public YouTube videos, including Shorts and past live streams, up to three hours. Private and unlisted videos don't work. If your free minutes run out partway through a video, you get the transcript up to that point.
- Do you keep the video or the transcript?
- We never download the video: Google's model reads the public YouTube link directly. Transcripts of public videos are kept for 30 days so the next person who asks gets them instantly; they contain nothing about who asked.