YouTube Subtitle Downloader: SRT & VTT, Even for Deleted Videos
Paste a YouTube link and download its subtitles as an SRT or VTT file. For live videos you get the original YouTube captions, including the auto-generated ones. And here is the part no other tool offers: Archivarix Tube Search also recovers subtitles from deleted YouTube videos, preserved in web archives in 240+ languages.
What You Can Download
- Captions of live videos. Manual subtitles and YouTube's auto-generated captions (marked "auto"), fetched straight from YouTube. Almost every live video with speech has at least the auto track.
- Subtitles of deleted videos. Captions that survived in web archives after the video was removed. This is our specialty.
- Full transcripts. An SRT file is a plain-text transcript with timestamps. Open it in any editor to read, copy, or search the text.
How to Download Subtitles from a YouTube Video
Subtitles from Deleted YouTube Videos
When a video disappears from YouTube, its captions usually survive in web archives. We index those archives, so the Subtitles button keeps working after the video itself is gone. No other subtitle or transcript tool can do this.
Deleted videos with surviving captions are exactly what the "Has Subtitles" filter counts. Curious what else survives deletion? Thumbnails, metadata, and sometimes the video file itself: see Watch Archived Videos.
Turn Subtitles into a Plain-Text Transcript
SRT is a plain-text format. Open the downloaded file in any editor (Notepad, VS Code, Google Docs) and you have the full transcript with timestamps. Need more than raw text?
- AI Summaries: a TL;DR, key points, and tags generated from the transcript (Plus)
- AI Stenograms: a clean, speaker-tagged dialogue transcript (MCP + API tier)
- MCP for AI assistants: let Claude or another AI assistant read transcripts of archived videos directly
No Captions? Generate Them with AI
Some videos never had captions, and some archives preserved the video but not its subtitles. In both cases the AI subtitle generator can transcribe the audio and produce the same SRT/VTT files. It works for live videos and for deleted videos whose audio survives in the Wayback Machine.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I download the transcript of a YouTube video?
Paste the video URL or ID into the search box, open the result, and click Subtitles. The downloaded SRT file is a timestamped transcript of everything said in the video.
Can I download subtitles from a deleted YouTube video?
Yes, that is our specialty. If the captions were archived before the video was deleted, they are still downloadable here. Search for the video URL or its channel and use the "Has Subtitles" filter.
Can I download YouTube auto-generated captions?
Yes. When a live video has no manual subtitles, you get YouTube's auto-generated track instead. Since most videos only have auto captions, that is usually what you download.
Which subtitle formats are supported?
SRT (SubRip) is the default. It works in VLC, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, and virtually every player or editor. VTT (WebVTT) is available for web players. Bulk ZIP downloads contain SRT files.
Is this subtitle downloader free?
Registration is free and includes a daily download quota. Plus raises the limits and adds bulk ZIP export. See Pricing for current quotas.
Can I download subtitles for an entire channel?
Yes. Search the channel and use the "Download Subtitles" button (Plus) to save each page of results as a ZIP of SRT files. It covers both live and deleted videos on the page.
