Most long-form YouTube videos which have a narration, automatically generate a transcript – here's how to access it...
Before we begin…
The Cambridge Dictionary definition of transcript is: “an exact written copy of something”.
YouTube videos can be excellent resources when conducting research. You can access university lectures, how-to tutorials and thought leadership presentations such as TED talks. However, if you are not an auditory learner, they can be hard to follow…
Taking notes is a headache! You desperately try to retain the previous point — whilst your hand catches up and completes your note in the form of a messy scrawl — whilst listening to the next. You end up having to constantly rewind the video, replaying moments to ensure your notes are coherent. If only there was a visual aid you could refer to…
Well, good news! Most long-form YouTube videos which have a narration, automatically generate a transcript — a write-up of the spoken content. YouTube shorts or music videos do not. In today’s tech tip, we shall explain how to access a YouTube transcript, making the business of note-taking a whole lot easier!
How to find a YouTube transcript
- Login to your YouTube account on a desktop or mobile device.
- Search for the video that you would like to download a transcript for.
- Click “...more” which can be found in the grey description box below the video.
- Click the “Show transcript” button under “Follow along using the transcript.” Please note: if a video transcript is not available, you will not see this button as an option.
The YouTube video’s transcript should have appeared to the right of the video.
You will see that each line of text is accompanied with a time-stamp. These time-stamps indicate where in the video that section of audio is spoken. If you were to play the video and read along using the transcript, when a line of text is spoken it will be highlighted, making it easier to follow.
How to download a YouTube transcript
It isn’t currently possible to download a YouTube video’s transcript unless you own the video. However, you can easily highlight and copy the transcript text, and paste it into your preferred word processing app such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
Before you do this, you may want to get rid of the time-stamps, so you don’t end up copying them as well. This is really simple to do:
- Click the kebab icon (three vertically stacked dots) in the top right-hand corner of the transcript box.
- Click “Toggle timestamps.”
The timestamps should have been removed.