How to Get a Transcript of a YouTube Video - Easy Guide

We are in an era in which you can now read YouTube videos. Yes, that’s right. Two and a half hours of university lectures or work-related recordings on video, but you can’t afford to spend that much time? Don’t watch it then; read it instead. How? With AI-powered transcripts. In the following article, find out how to get a transcript of a YouTube video in 2025 with only a few clicks.

Two Main Ways to Get a Transcript of a YouTube Video

There are two ways to get a transcript of a YouTube video in 2025:

• YouTube’s built-in auto-transcription tool (free but not as accurate).
• Third-party transcript generators like Amie (free trial, then paid, but highly accurate).

Are YouTube Transcripts Worth It?

With YouTube’s native auto-transcription tool, you can get the full audio-to-text transcript of most videos.

YouTube can auto-generate video transcripts within seconds. You can then copy the transcript (on desktop) and paste it into any word processor.

Transcripts generated by YouTube are free but lack accuracy. In fact, if you need to get a 100% accurate transcript, you will have to put some extra effort into manually reviewing the text —or hiring someone to do it for you.

For example, you don't get any punctuation when using YouTube’s automatic transcription feature. Have you tried reading a punctuationless document? I don’t recommend doing it. That’s where third-party transcription software comes into play (we’ll review this alternative later in the article).

Does YouTube Generate Transcripts for All Uploaded Videos?

YouTube generates transcripts for a large portion of the videos hosted on its platform, although there are some cases in which YouTube doesn’t create video transcripts.

YouTube transcripts (or captions) are generated exclusively for a specific number of languages. So, if the language of the video is not supported by YouTube, an automatic transcript won’t be generated.

YouTube’s automatic speech-recognition (ASR) system won’t work unless the audio quality is good. This means that if the audio contains overlapping speakers, heavily accented speech, or even long silences, YouTube won’t generate captions for that video.

Some older videos on the platform don’t get an auto-generated transcript, and extremely long videos might take a long time to receive captions.

On top of that, channel owners can choose to disable automatic captions on their videos.

YouTube Transcripts: Desktop vs Mobile

The process of getting a transcript of a YouTube video on desktop and mobile is pretty much the same, with a few small differences between the two.

YouTube Transcripts On Desktop

This is the step-by-step process to get automatically generated transcripts on desktop:

Step 1

Open the YouTube video, scroll down to the description, and click the “more” button to see the whole description.

Step 2

Scroll down to the bottom of the description and click the “show transcript” button.

Step 3

Go to the top of the page, where you should see the transcript to the right of your screen.

Step 4

You can click the three dots to choose whether timestamps are displayed or not.

YouTube Transcripts On Mobile

To get YouTube transcripts on mobile, just follow these steps:

Step 1

Open the YouTube app and choose a video.

Step 2

Scroll down to the description box and tap “more” to see the full description.

Step 3

Go to the bottom of the description box and tap “show transcript”. Unfortunately, you cannot remove timestamps on mobile —you’ll have to remove them manually later in case you need to.

Get a Transcript of a YouTube Video Using AI Transcription Software

As stated at the start of the article, YouTube’s auto-generated transcripts lack a ton of accuracy, which makes the text hard to read and work with.

Luckily for you, in 2025, there are several options available to help you get high-quality transcripts of a YouTube video. Among the most popular are AI-powered transcription software programs. These tools will make your life easier by producing a highly accurate transcription from audio and letting you interact with the transcript in a conversational way.

Get Highly Accurate Transcripts of YouTube Videos With AMIE

Amie is a transcription software, AI note taker, and AI meeting assistant that will provide an extremely accurate transcript of any YouTube video.

You will not only get a reliable transcription, but you will also be able to interact with Amie’s AI chat and ask any question about the text, including asking Amie’s AI to make summaries, create highlights, and generate follow-up tasks if needed.

Additionally, you can connect your favorite workspaces and apps with Amie to instantly share your transcripts and notes.

Let’s take a quick look at how to get a transcript of a YouTube video using Amie.

YouTube Transcripts With Amie

Need reliable transcripts of YouTube videos to work or study with, or simply to read for pleasure?

Use Amie.

Keep reading to find out how to make the most of it.

Step 1

Go to Amie, sign in, and download the desktop app.

Step 2

Open the app, and click on “upload a recording file” —you can easily get the audio file of any YouTube video using any of the free YouTube-to-audio conversion tools found on the web (like this one).

Step 3

Once the audio file has been uploaded, click on “open note” or find your recording on the left panel.

Step 4

Name the entry and add a description.

Step 5

Find the full transcript down the page next to the summary and the private notes tag.

Step 6

Enjoy all the AI features that will assist you in understanding and interacting with the transcript better.

When Should You Resort to Manual Transcription?

With so much new AI technology and transcription software available, it seems like manual transcription has been left behind.

In a way, that is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Why?

Because there are still some scenarios in which some level of manual transcription is required. For example, when audio quality is bad, there is background noise, accents are thick, or vocabulary is too technical.

In these cases, you can resort to professional manual transcription services on the web that might charge you $1/min or sometimes even a bit more.

Who Are YouTube Transcripts Useful For?

YouTube transcripts can be useful for a wide variety of workers, professionals, students, and individuals:

• For non-native speakers and language learners, written transcripts are great, because if you struggle to follow the spoken content in a video, reading along can help you better understand it.
• Content creators, educators, and researchers. Using transcripts makes it way easier to find what you need, including quotes, and jot down notes fast. With a transcription of the video, the process of repurposing its content for social media and web content is more straightforward.
• SEO and accessibility specialists. Transcripts allow search engines to crawl the video’s text so more users can find it first, and it’s a complete win for accessibility rules, too.

Conclusion

Converting audio into text on YouTube is quick and free, although the transcript leaves much to be desired with its inaccuracies and lack of punctuation. To solve this issue, you can turn to transcription software like Amie, that will provide you with a highly-accurate transcript, and extra AI-powered tools to interact with the text and make the most of it.