How to Download YouTube Subtitles as SRT, VTT or TXT (2026 Guide)

YouTube shows captions on almost every video, but it gives you no button to save them. If you want to read a transcript, study a language, translate a video or reuse captions in your own editor, you need the subtitle file itself. This guide shows the quickest way to get it, in the format you need.

Which YouTube subtitles can you download?

A YouTube video can carry three kinds of caption tracks, and all of them can be saved:

• Manual subtitles, uploaded by the creator. These are the most accurate.
• Auto-generated captions (marked "auto-generated"), created by YouTube’s speech recognition. Useful when no manual track exists, but expect mistakes.
• Auto-translated tracks, which YouTube machine-translates from an existing track into more than a hundred languages.

Download YouTube subtitles step by step

1. Install the free SubtitleDown extension for Chrome or Edge.
2. Open the YouTube video and click the SubtitleDown icon in the toolbar.
3. Tick the languages you want. Each track shows a badge: manual, auto or translated.
4. Pick a format: SRT, WebVTT, ASS, TXT or the original file.
5. Click Download. One track saves as a file; several tracks are bundled into a single ZIP.

Which format should you choose?

SRT works almost everywhere: VLC, media servers, video editors and most TVs. Choose WebVTT for websites and HTML5 players, ASS if you want styling or two languages at once, and TXT if you only need the transcript. Our comparison of SRT, VTT and ASS explains the differences in detail.

Turn on Strip SDH to remove hearing-impaired notes such as [Music], (laughs) or speaker labels. It makes transcripts much easier to read.

Get subtitles in a language the video doesn’t have

If a video has subtitles in one language, YouTube can machine-translate them. In SubtitleDown, choose Add auto-translated track, pick a language, and it appears in the list like any other track. For better quality you can also translate a downloaded file on your own device in the editor, using Chrome’s built-in translator.

Download subtitles for a whole playlist

Open any video that belongs to a playlist and use Download playlist (.zip). Choose the language, whether auto-generated captions are allowed, and the format. SubtitleDown goes through the videos one by one in a separate tab and saves a single ZIP with numbered files. See the playlist guide for the details.

Is it allowed to download YouTube subtitles?

Saving captions for personal use, such as studying, accessibility or translation, is common practice. Publishing someone else’s subtitles or using them commercially may need the creator’s permission. When in doubt, ask the creator, and respect YouTube’s terms.