How to Download YouTube Subtitles
What You Can Download
| Subtitle file | Contains | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| SRT · original only | The video's own captions, in the language they were written or auto-generated in. | Editing captions, or feeding an existing track into a subtitle tool. |
| SRT · translation only | One clean track in the language you picked, timed to the original video. | Re-uploading captions so a video is watchable in another language. |
| SRT · bilingual | Both languages inside every cue — original on top, translation underneath. | Language learning, and checking a translation against the source line by line. |
| Plain text · any of the three | The same words with the timecodes stripped out. | Reading, quoting, or pasting into an AI. |
Bilingual SRT is the one most subtitle downloaders do not offer: instead of two separate files you get one track that shows both languages at once, which is what makes it usable for study rather than just for re-upload.
What People Download Subtitles For
Grab the SRT, fix the wording, and upload it back to YouTube Studio so the video ships with a proper caption track instead of an automatic one.
Import the SRT into Premiere, Resolve, or CapCut to get an editable caption layer already aligned to the audio.
The bilingual file puts the original and the translation in the same cue, so you read both without pausing to look anything up.
Automatic captions are often unusable for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Downloading the track is the first step to correcting it.
Timecoded cues make it easy to cite exactly when something was said, not just that it was said.
A local subtitle file is searchable in a way the YouTube player is not — useful for lectures, conference talks, and podcasts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I download subtitles from a YouTube video?
Paste the video URL above. The downloader lists the caption tracks the video already has, you pick one, and it saves as an .srt file. Nothing to install.
Is the YouTube subtitle downloader free?
Yes. Every subtitle file on this page downloads free, with no account and no daily limit.
What is an SRT file?
SubRip Subtitle — a plain-text format where each caption is a numbered block with a start and end timecode. It is the format YouTube Studio, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, and VLC all accept, which makes it the safe default for subtitles.
Can I download CC (closed captions) as well as auto-generated subtitles?
Both. If the creator uploaded a proper caption file, that is what you get. If not, the download uses YouTube's automatic track — same mechanism, lower accuracy. We measured the gap: the automatic track has a median word error rate near 10%, and often no punctuation at all.
Can I download subtitles in a language the video does not have?
Yes — pick a target language and the downloader produces a translated SRT, timed to the original cues. It is machine translation, so proofread before publishing it as an official caption track.
Can I get subtitles with both languages at once?
Yes, that is the bilingual SRT: each cue carries the original line and the translated line together. Load it in VLC or upload it and both appear on screen.
Which languages have subtitles available?
Whatever the video carries. Coverage is very uneven across YouTube — we sampled it and found English dominant by a wide margin, with many languages barely represented.
What if the video has no subtitles at all?
Then there is no track to download. The page will offer to transcribe the audio instead, which is a paid feature because it runs a speech model over the recording.
Do I need a Chrome extension?
No. This runs as a web page, so it works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and on phones and tablets. If you would rather have subtitles appear inside the YouTube player itself, that is what the SubKun extension does — but downloading does not require it.