How to Get YouTube Transcript: Ultimate Guide

• To get a YouTube transcript, open the video, navigate to the three dots below the video player for more options, and select “Open Transcript.”

• YouTube video transcripts are a powerful tool for expanding the utility and reach of video content, making it available to a broader and more diverse audience.

• Transcripts play a critical role in enhancing accessibility, engagement, and the utility of audio and video content. Thankfully, AI tools designed to transcribe meetings, take notes, and generate summaries can further enhance the accessibility and productivity of online content.

The power of video content is undeniably growing. Have you ever stumbled upon a YouTube video and wished you could skim the content without hitting the play button? Or maybe you’re in a noisy room and can’t catch every word.

That’s where transcript YouTube steps in to help. This article will reveal how to get transcript of YouTube video to boost accessibility and get a quick grasp of the video’s gist.

YouTube Transcript Meaning

A YouTube transcript is a text version of the audio content in a YouTube video. Specifically, the transcript of YouTube videos provides a detailed, written record of the content spoken in the video.

YouTube transcripts may contain video chapters and include timestamps. The platform can serve as a YouTube transcript generator, which we’ll discuss later in this article.

YouTube hosts millions of videos, ranging from educational lectures to captivating vlogs. It has both web and app versions and serves as a social media platform.

YouTube, the world’s premier video streaming and sharing platform, was the second-most visited website worldwide in 2023, according to Semrush.

Why Transcripts Matter: YouTube Transcript

Videos significantly impact impressing and engaging customers. So, it’s no surprise that the global video streaming market is projected to hit nearly $1,721.4 billion by 2030. As for YouTube, it represented the most widely used video marketing platform in 2023.

Video content growth increases the need for video transcripts worldwide. After all, digesting YouTube video content through transcripts significantly enhances accessibility and improves learning.

Before digging deeper into how to get a YouTube video transcript, let’s unveil why you need a transcript YouTube video.

• Enhanced Accessibility: Transcripts make content accessible to people with disabilities, such as the deaf or hard of hearing. Additionally, transcripts broaden audience reach by including those who prefer reading to listening or those in sound-sensitive environments.

• Improved Engagement: Some viewers prefer to follow along with a transcript while watching a video, especially if the content is dense or complex. Namely, information digestion through video transcriptions and captions enhances comprehension and retention, resulting in longer watch times and more engagement.

• Improved Searchability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Text content is searchable, making it easier for search engines to index and understand video content through a YouTube transcript.

As a result, video visibility on search engines improves, contributing to better search engine optimization (SEO). The latter is about improving the visibility of websites in search engines like Google.

• Better Learning and Comprehension: Reading along with a video enhances understanding and information retention, especially in educational contexts. Moreover, transcripts can help learners better comprehend the material by providing a textual reference that learners can review as needed.

For instance, also called same-language subtitles, video captions improve comprehension of and memory for video content and enhance attention.

• Multilanguage Access: A YouTube transcript can be available in multiple languages, making the video accessible to non-native speakers globally. And multilanguage access is handy for educational content that needs to reach diverse viewers.

Specifically, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners have difficulty comprehend through listening. Thankfully, adding text to videos increases students’ listening comprehension ability.

• Content Repurposing or Recycling: Content repurposing means adapting existing content to different formats or platforms to boost content production and reach a wider audience.

Transcripts allow content creators to easily repurpose or recycle video content into different media forms, including quotes, blog posts, articles, books, and infographics.

• Legal Compliance: Businesses and educators comply with legal standards and regulations regarding accessibility by providing video transcripts. Moreover, transcripts are accurate records for legal proceedings, training, and compliance audits, serving as a verifiable document of spoken content.

For example, a YouTube transcript ensures accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing, aligning with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other similar regulations.

How to Get a Transcript of a YouTube Video

The popularity of YouTube videos results in an increased need for YouTube transcripts. Statista reports that the monthly active users (MAU) on YouTube reached almost 2.5 billion in October 2023.

Specifically, lots of people consider YouTube a platform for instructional videos, watching music videos, or spending time. Business owners think of YouTube as a significant revenue source for making money by growing their audiences through video.

So, how can you obtain a YouTube transcript?

Using YouTube’s Built-In Feature

You can generate transcripts using YouTube’s built-in feature directly from the video player. The feature is free and compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems.

The YouTube transcript feature uses speech recognition technology to automatically generate text. It mainly serves as a rough transcript. Speech recognition software, also called automatic speech recognition (ASR), processes spoken words into text.

The accuracy of such YouTube transcript varies based on the speech clarity in the video, background noise, and the language spoken. These auto-generated texts may require manual editing to correct inaccuracies concerning the spoken content in the video. 

To obtain a YouTube transcript through its built-in feature, follow these steps:

• How to Open Transcript on YouTube: Navigate to the video for which you need a transcript and open it. Ensure the creator has provided a transcript for that video.

• Find the Transcript Option: Scroll down the description below the video until you see “Show Transcript.” Moreover, you can choose an available transcript language on the dropdown list by clicking the down arrow next to the language at the bottom. 

• How to See Transcript on YouTube: Click on “Show Transcript.” A panel will appear on the right side of the video. If the video has a YouTube transcript, it’ll be displayed on the panel.

• How to Find Transcript on YouTube: The transcript will appear with timestamps by default. You can toggle timestamps on or off. Also, you can scroll through the transcript while the video is playing, click on a text segment to jump to that specific video part, or copy the text.

• How to Download YouTube Transcript: You can’t directly download a YouTube transcript. However, you can copy and paste it into a Google Docs or Microsoft Word text file and save it to your computer.

Using Google Docs

This method utilizes the Voice Typing feature, part of Google’s speech recognition technology. Google Voice Typing uses voice covert speech to text in Google Docs via Google’s speech recognition technology.

Google Docs generates a rough transcript, especially for clear audio in supported languages. Although it provides real-time transcription, the accuracy is low. To use Google Docs for creating YouTube transcripts:

1. Open a new Google Doc.
2. Navigate to the “Tools” menu to choose “Voice Typing.”
3. Click on the microphone icon when ready to start.
4. Play the video you want to transcribe by ensuring your computer’s microphone can catch the audio clearly.
5. As the video plays, Google Docs will transcribe the audio into text. You may need to pause frequently and adjust the text for accuracy.
6. Review the document to correct errors, punctuate and format the text when finished.
7. Once your YouTube transcript is complete, you can save the document in Google Docs or export it to another format, such as PDF or Word.

Using Manual Transcription

Another solution for getting a YouTube transcript is having a person manually type it out. Specifically, the process involves a person listening to the audio and typing out the spoken words.

Manual transcription reduces errors more successfully than automatic transcription tools, especially when videos have poor audio quality and background noises, accents, jargon, and multiple speakers. The transcriber can use quality headphones to catch subtle nuances in speech and ignore external noises.

Additionally, the transcriber can go back through the video to avoid missing any part of the video content. Moreover, the transcriber can include labels, timestamps, and annotations to make the transcript more functional and visually attractive. Finally, manual transcription enables reviewing and editing for added accuracy.

However, this method is time-consuming and requires intense focus and fast typing skills. Besides, it’s costly because transcriptionists require voice typing equipment like foot-pedals controlling video playback.

Using YouTube Transcript AI Tools

Another solution is to convert a YouTube video to a transcript using an AI-driven third-party service. To generate a YouTube video transcript using third-party services or platforms, provide the YouTube video URL to the service, which will process the audio and produce a text transcript.

These services offer YouTube transcriptions with high precision and are easy to use. Some include options for timestamps, speaker identification, and editing tools.

These tools are helpful mainly for content creators, educators, and professionals. Why? They need accurate documentation of video content for accessibility, content creation, or compliance purposes.

However, while some of these services offer free tiers, their high-accuracy professional services can be costly. Moreover, due to data privacy and security, some may be concerned with uploading content to third-party servers. Finally, receiving the transcript might be time-consuming, depending on the video length of the chosen service.

Using Google’s Cloud Speech-to-Text AI

Google’s Cloud Speech-to-Text AI transcribes the audio from YouTube videos, serving as an easy-to-use Application Programming Interface (API). The latter represents a set of rules and protocols sending instructions between one software platform and another.

Google’s Cloud Speech-to-Text AI uses neural network models to convert audio to a YouTube transcript. It’s designed mainly for developers who need to integrate speech recognition into applications. Although this is a paid service, it offers up to 60 minutes of free audio transcription and analysis per month.

Enhancing Transcripts with Krisp for Greater Impact

A YouTube transcript isn’t the only point to dwell on: what about online meeting transcripts via an AI meeting assistant like Krisp?

After all, the need for AI transcription technology is growing worldwide. For example, the marketing transcription market is forecast to hit $4.4 billion in 2033 from $1.9 billion in 2023.

Let’s see how AI meeting assistant Krisp makes your online interactions more productive and effective and reduces the time and effort needed for manual corrections. As a result, Krisp boosts life quality.

• Generates high-quality, detailed, and exceptionally accurate multilingual transcriptions, summaries, and note-taking in real time to provide low effort and high comprehension.

• Automates note-taking through ready-to-use templates to eliminate personal biases and interpretations that hinder effective communication and follow-up actions.

• Enhances post-meeting productivity through meticulous meeting minutes, keeping everyone informed and accountable, facilitating transcription editing and sharing, and improving accessibility.

• Minimizes distractions by removing background noise, voice, and echo to ensure clear audio during calls and recordings to generate accurate transcriptions.

• Seamlessly integrates with browser-based applications such as Google Meet and Zoom to deliver best-in-class audio clarity directly within.

• Works with services that support live transcription or post-meeting transcription of recordings, such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

• Learns from the data more effectively, thus enhancing its ability to recognize and transcribe nuanced speech over time.

Conclusion

A YouTube transcript significantly enhances the utility of video content beyond accessibility. Knowing how to get the transcript of a YouTube video through Google Docs, Google’s Cloud Speech-to-Text AI, manual transcription, and third-party AI services can boost viewer engagement. Moreover, it improves SEO and enables content repurposing across different platforms.

Specifically, mastering YouTube video transcription is becoming critical for content creators, marketers, and educators aiming to expand their audience, enhance educational materials, or increase video discoverability.

Overall, the role of automated transcriptions is on the rise in today’s evolving digital landscape. So, both YouTube video transcription services and AI meeting assistants like Krisp are becoming more popular for effective transcription.

Frequently Asked Questions on YouTube Transcript