YouTube Transcript Retriever

About

YouTube Transcript Retriever helps you quickly extract the transcript of the YouTube video you are watching, then copy it, download it, or send it to an AI assistant for summarization or translation.

It adds a simple transcript button directly on YouTube video pages. Click it to open a right-side panel, retrieve the available captions, and choose the format you need.

Main features:

• Retrieve the transcript of the current YouTube video
• View transcripts with timestamps or as compact plain text
• Click timestamps to jump to the matching moment in the video
• Copy the transcript to your clipboard
• Download the transcript as a .txt file
• Send the transcript to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for summary or translation
• Choose a preferred caption language
• Automatically use YouTube captions, browser language, English, or the first available caption track
• Optional automatic submission to your selected AI assistant
• No account required
• No backend server
• No analytics
• No transcript history storage

Useful for:

• Students taking notes from lectures
• Researchers reviewing interviews, talks, or podcasts
• Professionals summarizing long videos
• Language learners working with captions
• Content creators reviewing subtitles
• Anyone who wants to copy a YouTube transcript without manually selecting text

Privacy-first design:

The extension runs locally in your browser. It does not upload transcripts to a private server, collect analytics, or store your transcript history.

The only time transcript text is sent outside the YouTube page is when you explicitly click the Summary button. In that case, the extension opens your selected AI provider, such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and inserts a prompt containing the transcript.

Important limitations:

• The video must have captions available
• Captions may be creator-provided, auto-generated, or translated by YouTube
• The extension does not perform speech-to-text itself
• If YouTube captions are wrong, incomplete, or unavailable, the transcript will reflect that
• This extension is not affiliated with YouTube or Google

YouTube Transcript Retriever is intentionally simple, transparent, and focused on one job: helping you retrieve usable YouTube transcript text quickly.