Subtitle files
YouTube subtitle downloader
Pull the caption track off a public YouTube video and save it as a real subtitle file — .srt for editors, .vtt for the web. Both are generated in your browser.
Works with public videos that have captions. Free — no sign-up.
The two formats, side by side
Same cues, same timings. The difference is the header and the punctuation before the milliseconds — which is exactly why a player that wants one will reject the other.
SubRip — .srt
1 00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:03,360 All right, so here we are 2 00:00:05,318 --> 00:00:07,974 in front of the elephants
Numbered cues, comma before the milliseconds. Premiere, Resolve, Final Cut, VLC.
WebVTT — .vtt
WEBVTT 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:03.360 All right, so here we are 00:00:05.318 --> 00:00:07.974 in front of the elephants
WEBVTT header, no cue numbers, full stop before the milliseconds. HTML5 video.
Loading the file where you need it
- Premiere Pro
- File → Import, pick the .srt, then drag the caption track onto the timeline above your video.
- DaVinci Resolve
- Right-click in the Media Pool → Import Subtitle, then drop it onto a subtitle track in the Edit page.
- VLC or any desktop player
- Give the .srt the same filename as the video file and keep it in the same folder — it loads by itself.
- A web page
- Use the .vtt inside a
<track kind="subtitles">element on your HTML5 video.
Subtitle questions
SRT or VTT — which do I need?
SRT for video editors and most desktop players; it is the older, more widely accepted format. VTT for the web, because HTML5 video only accepts WebVTT in a <track> element. The cues are identical in both; they differ in the header and whether milliseconds are written after a comma or a full stop.
Will the timings line up with my copy of the video?
Yes, as long as it is the same cut. The timings come from the video's own caption track, so they are already synced to the published version. If you have trimmed an intro off your local copy, everything shifts by the amount you removed and you will need to offset the file in your editor.
Can I re-upload these subtitles to another platform?
Technically the file will import anywhere that accepts SRT or VTT. Whether you may do so is a rights question, not a technical one: captions are part of the video and belong to whoever owns it. Use this for your own videos, for videos you have permission to use, or for private study.
The punctuation in the file is poor. Can I fix it?
That is the signature of automatic captions — YouTube's speech recognition adds few commas and almost no full stops. The metadata line tells you when a track is auto-generated. Both formats are plain text, so opening the file in any editor and cleaning it up is straightforward; the timings stay untouched as long as you leave the numbered lines alone.
Why does one cue sometimes repeat a line from the one before?
Automatic captions scroll: a line appears, then reappears with the next few words attached. We drop exact duplicates while normalising, but partial overlaps can survive. It is harmless on screen and easy to trim if you are polishing a subtitle file for publication.
Need the subtitle file?
Paste the video link, then choose .srt or .vtt from the Download menu. The file is built in your browser.
Download subtitles