How to Transcribe a YouTube Video

Turn any YouTube video into accurate text with word-level timestamps. SpeakSwap uses OpenAI's Whisper AI to transcribe speech in 140+ languages — completely free. Download as SRT subtitles.

10,000+
videos processed
4.8/5
user rating
140+
languages
~5 min
avg. processing
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Free tier limit: 10 min/file

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How It Works

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Paste the YouTube URL

Copy the YouTube video URL and paste it here. SpeakSwap extracts the audio automatically — no need to download the video first.

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AI transcribes the speech

Whisper large-v2 AI processes the audio, generating an accurate transcript with precise word-level timestamps. The source language is auto-detected.

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Download or edit your transcript

Review the transcript in our built-in editor, make any corrections, then download as SRT subtitles. Ready for YouTube captions, blog posts, or translations.

Frequently Asked Questions

SpeakSwap uses OpenAI's Whisper large model, which achieves 95%+ accuracy for clear speech in major languages. It handles accents, background noise, and multiple speakers well. You can review and edit any errors in our transcript editor.

Whisper supports 140+ languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and many more. The language is auto-detected from the audio.

Yes. SpeakSwap generates word-level timestamps using forced alignment technology. This gives you precise timing for every word — perfect for creating subtitles, editing video, or syncing text to audio.

Yes! After transcription, you can use SpeakSwap's subtitle translator to convert your transcript into any of 140+ languages. Or use the dubbing tool to get a fully dubbed audio version.

Yes, SpeakSwap's transcription is completely free. No account required, no limits. Paste any YouTube URL and get your transcript with timestamps in minutes.

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