Download subtitles from any YouTube video
Y4DL’s subtitle downloader saves the captions of a YouTube video as a small text file you can keep, edit or load into any player. Paste a video link, and you see every subtitle track the video has – the ones the creator uploaded, YouTube’s automatic captions, and machine translations into more than a hundred languages. Pick a language, choose SRT, VTT or TXT, and the file is ready in about a second.
It works on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad, in any modern browser. There is nothing to install and no account to create, and subtitles from regular videos, Shorts and finished live streams are all supported.
Three kinds of YouTube subtitles
YouTube videos can carry several different subtitle tracks. Y4DL groups them so you can tell them apart at a glance:
| Type | Who makes it | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Subtitles from the creator | Uploaded by the channel, often professionally written | Best – correct spelling, punctuation and timing |
| Auto-generated captions | YouTube’s speech recognition, in the spoken language | Good for clear speech; little punctuation, names may be wrong |
| Translated subtitles | YouTube’s machine translation of the captions above | Useful to understand a video; not a professional translation |
When a video has creator subtitles in the language you need, choose those. Auto-generated captions are available on most spoken videos and are a good fallback. If neither is in your language, use the Translate to another language list – it covers more than 100 languages, from Spanish and Arabic to Persian, Hindi, Turkish and Japanese.
SRT, VTT or TXT – which format should you choose?
| Format | What it contains | Use it with |
|---|---|---|
| SRT (SubRip) | Numbered lines with start and end times | VLC, PotPlayer, MPC-HC, smart TVs, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, Final Cut (via import) |
| VTT (WebVTT) | Timed lines in the web standard format | HTML5 video players, JW Player, Video.js, Plyr, online course platforms |
| TXT (transcript) | Only the words, joined into readable paragraphs | Reading, quoting, notes, translation, summaries, blog posts |
If you are not sure, choose SRT: it is the most widely supported subtitle format in the world. This is what an SRT file looks like inside:
1 00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:03,800 Welcome back to the channel. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,150 Today we're looking at three easy recipes.
All files are saved as UTF-8, so subtitles in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and other scripts display correctly. SRT and TXT files also include a byte-order mark, which helps older Windows programs and TVs read accented and non-Latin letters.
How to download YouTube subtitles
- Copy the video link. In the YouTube app tap Share → Copy link; on a computer, copy the address from the browser bar.
- Paste it above and press Start. The Subtitles tab opens with every available language.
- Choose a format – SRT, VTT or TXT.
- Press Download next to the language you want – search the list or pick one of the 100+ translations.
- Check the preview and press Download SRT (or VTT / TXT). The subtitle file is saved to your Downloads folder, named after the video and the language, for example
Video title - y4dl.com_en.srt.
For device-specific tips and troubleshooting, read our step-by-step guide to downloading YouTube subtitles.
How to use a downloaded subtitle file
With a video on your computer
Give the subtitle file exactly the same name as the video file (only the extension differs, for example lesson.mp4 and lesson.srt) and keep both in the same folder. VLC, PotPlayer, MPC-HC, IINA and most smart TVs then load the subtitles automatically. In VLC you can also drag the .srt file onto the playing video, or use Subtitle → Add Subtitle File.
On a phone
Video players such as VLC for Mobile and MX Player let you pick a subtitle file from the player’s menu. On iPhone and iPad, the file is saved in Files → Downloads; on Android, in the Downloads folder.
In a video editor
Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, Final Cut Pro (with a converter) and Shotcut can import SRT files as a caption track that you can restyle, retime and burn into your own videos.
On a website
Add a VTT file to an HTML5 video with a <track> element, or upload it to your video platform as a caption file.
What people use YouTube subtitles for
- Learning languages – read along, look up words, and study the transcript of a lesson or a film scene.
- Accessibility – keep captions for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing when you watch offline.
- Study and research – turn a lecture or interview into searchable text with the TXT format.
- Your own channel – back up your captions, translate them, or reuse a transcript as a blog post or show notes.
- Translation work – start from accurate timings and translate the text in Subtitle Edit or Aegisub.
Tips for better results
- Auto-generated captions have little punctuation and may spell names wrong. Open the SRT in a free editor such as Subtitle Edit to correct it.
- Translated subtitles are only as good as the captions they are based on. A video with creator subtitles usually translates much better.
- If a video shows no subtitles at all, the creator has not uploaded any and YouTube has not generated captions – common for music without vocals and very new uploads. Try again a few hours after a video is published.
Respect the creator
Subtitles are part of the creator’s work. Use downloaded captions for personal viewing, study, accessibility, or with content you own or have permission to use. Don’t republish someone else’s subtitles or transcripts as your own. See our Terms of Use for details.