YouTube is an ultimate platform for content creators and as a consumer of that content, it gives us lots of opportunity. As a life long student, I like to upgrade my tech skills with the help of YouTube. It has many awesome channels and creator of those content are brilliant.
When I follow any tutorial from YouTube, I like to take notes on Google docs, which not only help me for future reference but also it’s a great practice. But what I miss most of the time, there is no direct way to download subtitles from YouTube.
Also Read: 3 Quick Ways to Download YouTube Videos (4K, 1080p, 720p)
Why I need subtitles from YouTube? Because I don’t like to pause the YouTube video multiple times to take notes on Google docs. It is very difficult and time consuming to listen your instructor from YouTube and take notes from it.
Subtitles can help me reduce my time to make notes on Google docs. As a result I can speed up learning and focus more on content of the video rather than note taking.
To download YouTube subtitles, in this article I have complied three ultimate ways to help you out then let’s begin!
Method 1# Download YouTube Subtitles by SaveSubs
This is the first method which I use most of the time because its easy and take less time to complete my task. Here are the steps which you need to follow to download subtitles from YouTube.
Step 1: Before you try to download YouTube subtitles from a video, make sure they are available. You can do this by checking the “CC” button at the bottom of the video. The absence of “CC” button means that it will be impossible to get subtitles.
Example (With CC from YouTube):
Example (Without CC from YouTube):
Step 2: Copy the video URL from browser’s address bar.
Step 3: Visit SaveSubs site and insert your YouTube video URL into the target field. Then click “Extract & Download.”
Step 4: Scroll down the page and download the subtitles in a format of your choice (SRT or TXT) using its respective button. I always prefer text version because this is my requirement but if you wish you can go for SRT version too.
Step 5 (Optional): Sometime you might need to translate your subtitles, the reason can be English is not your first language. In that case to receive subtitle translation, select the desired language and click “Translate & Download” button in the translation tool.
Method 2# Download YouTube Subtitles by DVDVideoSoft
Sometimes I use DVDVideoSoft site to download subtitles from YouTube. This site UI doesn’t look so good in compare to SaveSubs but it does it work pretty well in short time.
Then, here are the steps which you need to follow to download subtitles from YouTube.
Step 1: Copy the video URL from browser’s address bar.
Step 2: Visit DVDVideoSoft site and insert your YouTube video URL into the target field. Then click “Download” button.
Step 3: Scroll down the page where you can preview the subtitle of the video before even actual download begin. If you are happy with the result then hit on “Download.txt” button.
Method 3# Download YouTube Subtitles manually through YouTube
This is the last method which I never uses to download subtitles from YouTube because it does not fulfill my requirement. However, if it fulfills your requirement then you can use this method too.
This is one of the easiest method because it is built into YouTube platform then here are the steps which you need to follow:
Step 1: On the page with video, click the button for advanced options which looks like three horizontal dots.
Step 2: Click “Open transcript” to open a special window with subtitles.
Step 3: Click on the options button at the top to toggle timestamps, and change the language (if necessary) in the lower left part of the window.
Step 4: Select all text in the transcription window, then left click to copy the text and paste it into any document to save afterwards.
This is the reason why I don’t use this method personally but if you like manual work to do then you should try it out.
Conclusion
So, these are the three ultimate ways to download subtitles from YouTube. Personally, I like the first method from SaveSubs, because of its ease of use. Your goals can be anything watch movie without sound, read the translation directly from the screen or train your pronunciation of other languages with subtitles.
Let me know in the comment section which method you are going to use the most and thank you for reading this article.
