Get the full transcript of any YouTube video — free.
Paste a YouTube URL. Readlis pulls the complete transcript with timestamps in seconds. No signup, no watermark. Turn it into an AI summary with one click.
5 free summaries a month. No card.
Paste a YouTube URL to get the transcript
What you get
- Full transcript with clickable timestamps
- Works on any public YouTube video, any length
- Copy plain text, download .txt or .srt
- Auto-detects the video's language
- No account, no email, no watermark
- One click to turn the transcript into a summary
Made for
- Grab a keynote transcript for your notes
- Pull quotes verbatim from a founder interview
- Feed a lecture into your own AI workflow
- Search a 3-hour podcast for one line
How it works
- Step 1Paste the YouTube URL
Any youtube.com or youtu.be link works, including Shorts. Nothing to install and no account to create.
- Step 2Readlis fetches the captions
The transcript is pulled in the video's original language, with timestamps preserved line by line.
- Step 3Copy, download, or summarize
Copy the plain text, download it as .txt or .srt, or press summarize to turn the transcript into key points and quotes.
FAQ
Is this transcript generator really free?+
Yes. Transcripts are free and unlimited-feeling for normal use — no account, no email, no watermark. Only AI summaries count against the 5-a-month free quota.
Do I need to sign up?+
No. Paste a link and the transcript appears. An account is only needed if you want to save summaries to a library.
What if the video has no captions?+
Readlis tries auto-generated captions first and a fallback transcript source second. Videos with no speech can't be transcribed.
Which languages are supported?+
Whatever languages the video has captions in — the original language is detected automatically. Summaries can be produced in 17 languages.
Can I download it as an .srt subtitle file?+
Yes, .srt with timestamps and .txt plain text are both available. There's also a dedicated subtitles downloader.
Is it legal to download YouTube transcripts?+
Captions are publicly served alongside public videos. Use them for personal notes, research, accessibility, and quoting with attribution — not for republishing someone's content as your own.