Skip to main content

AI Watch · Reads what’s said and what’s on screen

Get the YouTube transcript. Understand the whole video.

Paste a YouTube link to get a searchable transcript with timestamps. Then AI Watch reads both what is said and what appears on screen—so you get the full story, fast.

3 free, no account · 25 a month with a free account

See AI Watch Or read transcripts on YouTube itself — add to Chrome

AI Watch

See what captions miss.

AI Watch reads speech and frames together—so every answer can point back to what was said or shown.

Explore AI Watch

See a real, unedited analysis of Apple’s WWDC keynote

One source, every useful output

One video. Every useful output.

Move from exact words to evidence, notes and reusable data without switching tools.

Searchable transcript

Get a transcript

Summary & chapters

See how chapters are built

Exports & API

View API docs

How it works

From YouTube link to searchable transcript in seconds.

Paste a link

Add any public YouTube URL or video ID.

Search exact words

Find the moment that matters, with its exact timestamp.

Ask with evidence

Get grounded answers with quotes, frames and citations.

Export or automate

Save, share or build the transcript into your workflow.

Chrome extension

Read it without leaving YouTube.

A side panel next to the player: the transcript scrolling with the video, search across it, caption languages and translation, and notes anchored to the moment you took them — saved to the same library as everything you do here.

Add to Chrome What it does

Radar

Monitor channels before you spend a Cloud Request.

Watching a channel is free — no Cloud Request, no AI unit. Radar records new uploads and emails you a digest. Switch analysis on for a watchlist and it reads the ones worth reading, inside a monthly ceiling you set.

Explore Radar

Channel watchlist

MMKBHD2 new LLinus Tech Tips1 new FFireship3 new CComputerphile—

New uploads

Google Pixel 11/Pro/Fold Impressions2h ago The colour everyone asked about5h ago Every watch I actually wore this year7h ago

How it works

1Add channels to a watchlist

2Radar records new uploads — free

3A digest lands in your inbox

4You choose what to analyze

API & MCP

Wire it in, or let an assistant call it.

The same extraction behind this page, two ways: a REST endpoint your code posts to, and an MCP server an AI assistant talks to on its own.

REST API

Up to 50 videos per request. Video IDs or full URLs, an optional caption language, and the transcript comes back as JSON.

TXTSRTVTTCSVJSON

Read the API docs

POST /api/transcripts

curl -X POST https://vidwords.com/api/transcripts \
  -H "Authorization: Basic YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"ids": ["dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "lang": "en"}'

MCP server

Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP client can search a transcript, read a video’s frames or check a watchlist without you pasting anything.

Set up MCP

Bulk & teams

Whole channels, and the people you share them with.

Past a certain point the unit of work stops being one video, and stops being one person.

Bulk extraction

Paste a playlist or a channel handle and take the whole thing in one job. Every transcript lands in your library with the rest.

10 on Starter100 on Pro500 on Team

Start a bulk job

Team seats

Share a Radar watchlist with your team: everyone sees the same channels and gets the same digest. A teammate does not need a paid plan of their own.

5 seats on Team

How teams work

Use cases

Built for how you learn, create and decide.

A student writing notes by hand beside a laptop

Students

Study faster, understand deeper, remember longer.

A video creator taking notes beside a camera in a warm studio

Creators

Repurpose content, find moments, grow your audience.

A researcher comparing a printed paper against notes at a desk

Researchers

Find evidence, cite sources, save hours.

A small team reviewing a shared screen in a meeting room

Teams

Share knowledge, align faster, make better decisions.

Plans

Simple pricing. Start free.

Begin with the free plan, then scale when VidWords saves you time.

Compare every plan

Free

$0 /month

No card required.

  • Unlimited browser transcripts
  • 25 Cloud Requests / month
  • 200 AI Processing Units / month
  • All export formats
Start free

Starter

$10 /month

Or $100/year — save $20

  • 1,000 Cloud Requests / month
  • 3,000 AI Processing Units / month
  • Bulk playlist + channel
  • 1-year history
Choose Starter

Pro

Most popular

$29 /month

Or $290/year — save $58

  • 3,500 Cloud Requests / month
  • Deep Watch mode
  • 10,000 AI Processing Units / month
  • Unlimited history
Choose Pro

Team

$79 /month

Or $790/year — save $158

  • 10,000 Cloud Requests / month
  • 30,000 AI Processing Units / month
  • 5 team seats
  • API access
Choose Team

What it is

VidWords in one paragraph

VidWords is a YouTube transcript extractor: paste a link and it returns the spoken text as clean paragraphs with clickable timestamps and chapter headings, ready to export as TXT, SRT, VTT, CSV, JSON or Word. Videos whose captions are missing or disabled are transcribed from their audio instead, so a link rarely comes back empty. Beyond a single video it extracts whole channels and playlists in one batch, searches saved transcripts by what was actually said rather than by title, and answers questions about a video through a REST API or an MCP server that AI assistants call directly. Three extractions a month need no account; a free account adds unlimited browser transcripts, 25 monthly Cloud Requests and 200 monthly AI Processing Units.

FAQ

Answers before you paste a link.

How do I get a transcript from a YouTube video?

Paste a public YouTube link into VidWords and select Get transcript. You will receive a searchable transcript with clickable timestamps that you can copy, summarize or export.

Can VidWords analyze what appears on screen?

Yes. AI Watch reads speech and video frames together, then supports its answers with exact timestamps, quotes and frames you can inspect.

Which transcript formats can I export?

TXT, SRT, VTT, CSV and JSON—SRT and VTT are subtitle files with timecodes, CSV and JSON are for data work—plus a developer API for automations and integrations.

Can I download the subtitles as an SRT file?

Yes. Pick .srt or .vtt in the download menu and you get a standard subtitle file with timecodes, ready for a video editor or player. Here is the longer walkthrough on downloading YouTube subtitles.

Can I get a YouTube transcript into Word?

There is no one-click transcript-to-.docx button; the download formats are the five above. For a Word document you switch the transcript to plain text and paste, which takes about twenty seconds and is covered in YouTube transcript to Word. AI Watch is the exception: its analysis exports as a formatted .docx with chapter headings and real frames.

Does this work on YouTube Shorts?

Yes—paste the Shorts link exactly as it appears. YouTube strips the transcript control out of the Shorts player, so a Shorts transcript is the one case where a tool genuinely saves you the hunt.

Can I extract a whole channel or playlist?

Yes. Paste a channel handle or a playlist link to queue many videos in one run—see channels & playlists, or drive it from the API.

Do I need an account?

Not to try it—a logged-out visitor can extract 3 videos each month. A free account raises that to 25 Cloud Requests a month and keeps a searchable library of everything you have extracted. Both allowances reset on the 1st, at 00:00 UTC.

Paste a link. Get the words. See the whole story.

No signup to start · Free to try · No card required