Transcribe a YouTube Live stream to text
YouTube Live transcript: the talk of a live stream as text with the time of every line, exported as TXT, SRT, VTT or CSV. Up to 30 minutes a file on the free plan, no minute limit on Pro.
A live stream on YouTube is a video file after the broadcast, and its live captions are made in English only. Take the file of it and the talk comes back as text, one line per segment, with the time of every line. One file holds 30 minutes.
How to transcribe a YouTube Live stream
- 1
Find the replay in the studio
Open the studio of the channel and go to the past broadcasts of the live tab. The replay of the stream sits there with the date of it.
- 2
Take the file of the video
Download the video of the replay, or take the file of the captions in the transcript editor of the studio: the captions of the recording are downloaded as a subtitle file.
- 3
Upload the file
Put the recording on the widget above and leave the language on automatic detection. The engine works with 99+ languages and picks the language of the file on its own.
- 4
Export the text
Every line of the export shows the second it starts at, and the speakers can be named on request. SRT and VTT are the two formats for subtitles, CSV keeps the time and the voice.
What you get
- TXT
Plain text for an email, a note or a chat
- SRT
Subtitles for video editors and platforms
- VTT
Subtitles for a browser and a website
- CSV
A table: time, speaker, text
- DOCX
A Word document with speakers and times
- Markdown
Text with headings for notes
What the transcript of a stream holds
- The captions of a live stream
made on the fly and in English only, as Google says
- The captions of the recording
made after the stream ends, for the video that lies in the channel
- The file of the captions
taken in the studio as a subtitle file of the video
- One file
up to 30 minutes on the free plan, no minute limit on Pro
Why the replay of a stream needs a text
A stream of 30 minutes is left in the channel as a replay, and the moment when the answer was given is somewhere in the middle of it. Nobody watches a replay twice, and everybody searches a text of it once, and the answer is found in a second.
Tips
Take the video of the replay, not the live captions of the moment.
Wait for the captions of the recording before you need them.
Name the file with the date of the stream.
Export CSV when the talk has to go into a table of questions.
Questions this page answers
Are the live captions of YouTube in Russian?
No. Google says that the automatic captions during a live stream are made only for English. The captions of the recording appear later, and they are a different file from the live ones.
When do the captions of the recording appear?
After the stream ends: the captions of the recording are made for the video that lies in the channel, and they are not ready at the moment the broadcast is over.
Can I take the captions instead of the video?
Yes, the transcript editor of the studio downloads the captions as a subtitle file. That file already holds the words and the time of every line, so the widget above takes the audio or the video of the recording.
How long may one file be?
up to 30 minutes, on every plan. A stream longer than that is cut into parts before the upload, and every part carries its own timecodes.
Sources
- SGoogle: the captions of a live streamsupport.google.com · checked 24 October 2026
- SGoogle: how to download the captions of a videosupport.google.com · checked 24 October 2026
Reading: 6 minutesUpdated Transcribsi editorial team
Drop a recording — the text arrives in a minute
Speakers by name, a time on every line, export to TXT, SRT, VTT, CSV and Markdown.