About and methodology

How transcripts work

The tool works with existing captions and stores transcripts for faster repeat access. It does not create speech-to-text for videos without captions. An unsuccessful request does not necessarily mean a video has no captions.

What AI does, and what it cannot verify

AI generates summaries, translations and answers from transcript text, not by watching the video. Visual-only information can be missed, automatic captions can contain errors, and AI can introduce mistakes. Check names, numbers and quotations against the recording. Long inputs may be shortened or processed in parts.

Free access and fair-use limits

The public tool requires no account or subscription. Fair-use limits apply to transcript retrieval and AI features. Availability can vary; free access does not mean unlimited processing.

Private use is not publication

Fetching a video does not publish its transcript. Imported SRT and VTT files are parsed in your browser and are not uploaded for retrieval or built-in AI processing. Analytics measures visits and selected successful tool actions, not transcript text. See the privacy page for data handling and storage details.

Privacy

Guides, examples and public transcripts

Guides are published by TranscriptYouTube. Their update dates describe changes to the written instructions, not a guarantee that every YouTube layout or video has been tested. Downloadable examples are original illustrative captions and are labeled separately from real video transcripts.

Public library publication is a separate editorial step. Our publishing checklist requires permission to republish, caption review against the recording, an original summary and attribution to the source video. Captions and summaries are not independent fact-checks of a speaker’s claims.

All guides