Free YouTube video to text converter
A video is unsearchable until the words come out of it. Upload your video file and Hilite returns a transcript with speaker labels and timestamps, in 99+ languages, that you can read, correct and export as text, Word or subtitles. Auto-captions on YouTube are a rough draft with no punctuation and no speakers. This is the version you can actually publish.
Upload the video, export the transcript or the subtitles.
How to turn a video into text
- 1
Upload the video file
Drop in the MP4. There is no need to extract the audio track first, and long videos go in whole rather than being split into parts.
- 2
Pick the language
Choose the spoken language or let Hilite detect it. Videos that switch between languages go through the same engine.
- 3
Read and correct
The transcript stays linked to the video, so clicking a line plays that moment. Names, product names and acronyms are where machine transcripts slip, and this is where you fix them in seconds.
- 4
Export as text or subtitles
Download TXT or DOCX for a script or an article, or SRT to upload as captions. Timestamps and speaker labels come with it.
Keep working inside the Hilite editor
Your uploaded files open directly in a focused editor view. Arrange your clips, preview the timeline, adjust transitions, and export when the track sounds perfectly right.
- Review the transcript in context
- Keep timestamps with the words
- Copy, export, or keep editing
Input formats
Output formats
Built for every kind of audio
Whatever you are making, this tool helps you get to a cleaner, more useful result, then hand off to Hilite to enhance and polish.
- Auto-captions are a draftYouTube's automatic captions have no punctuation, no capitalisation and no speaker changes. They are useful for searching and not for anything you would put your name on.
- Text is where the reuse happensOne video becomes a blog post, a newsletter, a set of clips and a searchable archive, but only once the words are out of it and in a form you can edit.
- Captions are not optional any moreA large share of video is watched with the sound off. Accurate captions with real punctuation are the difference between being watched and being scrolled past.
Made for podcasters and their teams
Trim the dead air off the top and tail, and every recording is ready to edit, enhance, and publish.
FAQ
Common questions
If you do not see your question here, the support team replies within one business day.
- Upload the video file itself. For a video you own, that is the file you uploaded to YouTube. For someone else's video, YouTube's own transcript panel shows the auto-captions if the creator has them enabled.
- Punctuation, capitalisation, speaker labels and a transcript you can edit against the audio. Auto-captions are one continuous stream of lowercase words, which is readable but not usable as a document.
- Yes. Export as SRT and upload it to YouTube in place of the automatic captions. Timings come from the transcript, so the cues line up with what was said.
- Yes. A one-hour video goes in as one file with no splitting, and the timestamps run continuously across the whole thing.
- It is free to start. Longer videos, saved projects and some export formats may need a free Hilite account.
Get the words out of your video
Upload an MP4 and get a timestamped transcript with speaker labels, exportable as text, Word or subtitles.