In this article, I will talk about how you can download subtitles from YouTube videos on both desktop and Android using multiple methods. So let’s start.
Download YouTube subtitles on desktop
Step 1: Go to YouTube and play the video for which you want to download the subtitles. Step 2: Click on the three horizontal dots, a drop-down menu will appear, and then click on the “Open transcript” option.
Step 3: You will see the subtitles of the video in a text pane to the right of the screen. If you don’t want to download the timestamps along with the subtitles then click on the three vertical dots, and then on the “Toggle timestamps” options, else you can skip this step. Step 4: Next copy the subtitle text by first selecting all the text and then either do right-click and then click on Copy or just use keyboard short cut Ctrl+C.
Step 5: The last step is to paste the subtitle text in any of your favorite text editors such as Google Docs or Microsoft word and save it for future use.
Use a third-party website
You can also use third-party websites to download subtitles from YouTube Videos. Many websites provide such services for free but come with unwanted advertisements. Downsub is one such website that I recommend as it’s really easy to use. Step 1: First copy the URL of the YouTube video you want to download the subtitles from by selecting the URL and then right-clicking and selecting Copy as or just pressing Ctrl+C. Step 2: Visit Downsub and paste the copied URL in the text box and click on the “DOWNLOAD” button. Step 3: When the processing is complete you can download the required subtitles in either text or SRT format by clicking on the appropriate button below the video.
Step 4: The text file will start downloading and once completed can be accessed in Chrome by clicking on it toward the bottom left or from the download folder in Windows. The website also has an option to download subtitles in different languages if you scroll down and even download in 2 languages to easily compare.
Download YouTube subtitles on Android
Both the Android App for YouTube and the YouTube version for mobile devices do not support downloading subtitles from a YouTube video directly, therefore using third-party software is the only solution. You can use a third-party website like Downsub I talked about above on phone to do this or you can use an Android app made to download subtitles from Android. The instructions are the same to use Downsub on phone, so I am not going to go through them again. I am just going to show you how to use an Android app to download YouTube subtitles: For this purpose, I am going to use ccTube. Step 1: Download and install ccTube from Google Play Store and open it to give required permissions. Step 2: Play the video from which you want to download the subtitles in the Android YouTube App. Then click on the Share button.
Step 3: In the list of applications, select ccTube. Step 4: ccTube will process the video and display its subtitles below it. To download, tap on the down arrow icon immediately below the video. The subtitles will be downloaded to the folder of ccTube in the local storage of your phone.
Step 5: To find the download file, open the Android file manager and tap on the folders tab. Step 6: Next tap on the ccTube folder to open it and you will find the downloading subtitles in the form of a text file.
Ending words
Using a third-party website like Downsub is definitely the best option as it works on both desktop and Android and offers a bunch of extra options like downloading in multiple formats and languages. Although the built-in method of getting a YouTube transcript also works great when you want to quickly see the subtitles.
