The copy button YouTube forgot to build
To copy a YouTube transcript, paste the video link into the box at the top of this page and press the copy button. The entire transcript lands on your clipboard in one click, no dragging through a scrolling panel, no timestamps to strip out by hand.
YouTube does show transcripts, but copying from its panel means selecting hundreds of lines by hand and inheriting a timestamp on every one of them. For anything longer than a clip, that turns a simple copy into ten minutes of cleanup. Here the cleanup is already done.
With timestamps or without
The timestamped view copies each line with its moment in the video, which is right for citing quotes or building show notes. The plain text view merges everything into readable paragraphs first, which is right for documents, emails, and drafts. The copy button always exports the view you are looking at.
Copy for AI, prompt included
The "Copy for AI" option wraps the transcript in a ready made prompt before it hits your clipboard. Paste that into ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant and it already knows to summarize the video, pull key points, or draft from it. One paste replaces the whole setup.
Long videos are fine
Lectures, podcasts, and multi hour streams copy just as fast as clips. There is no length cap and no per day limit, because the text comes from the caption track YouTube already publishes for the video.
Prefer a file instead of the clipboard? Download the transcript as TXT, SRT, or VTT with the subtitle downloader, or read about the plain text workflow on the YouTube to text page.
Copying transcripts: common questions
How do I copy a transcript from a YouTube video?
Paste the video link into the box above, wait a few seconds for the transcript to load, and press the copy button. The whole transcript lands on your clipboard in one click, with timestamps or as clean paragraphs, whichever view you have selected.
Why not copy from YouTube’s own transcript panel?
YouTube’s "Show transcript" panel only lets you select text by dragging through a long scrolling list, and every line comes with its timestamp glued on. Here one click copies the whole thing, and the plain text view gives you readable paragraphs with no timestamps to strip out.
Can I copy the transcript without timestamps?
Yes. Switch to the plain text view and the lines merge into clean paragraphs with no timestamps. Copy from that view and you get text ready to paste into a document, a note, or an email without any cleanup.
What is the "Copy for AI" button?
It copies the transcript wrapped in a ready made prompt, so you can paste it straight into ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant and ask for a summary, key points, or a draft based on the video. It saves you writing the instructions yourself.