How to get the captions from a YouTube Short on your phone
To get the captions from a YouTube Short on your phone, tap Share → Copy link on the Short, open vidwords.com in your phone's browser, paste the link and tap Get transcript free. The Short's captions appear as text you can copy in one tap or download as TXT or SRT. You don't need an app or an account for the first 3 videos a month.
This works from a phone browser. As a shortcut, type vidwords.com/?v= in the address bar and paste the Short's link straight after it.
On your phone (iPhone or Android)
- In the YouTube app, open the Short and tap Share, then Copy link. The link looks like
https://youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID?si=…, and the?si=part is fine to keep. - Open Safari or Chrome, go to vidwords.com, and paste the link into the box. You can also use the box at the top of this page.
- Tap Get transcript free. The captions load as readable text within a few seconds.
- Tap Copy, with Text only selected beside it if you don't want timestamps, then paste into Notes, a message or ChatGPT. Or tap Download to save
.txtor.srtto your phone's Downloads folder (the Files app on iPhone).
VidWords recognises /shorts/ links, including m.youtube.com ones, and reads the same caption track YouTube shows. You don't have to convert the link first.
What you get
A Short's captions come back as a few lines of clean text. Copied with timestamps, each paragraph starts with its time, like [0:12] and that's the one setting nobody changes…. The export menu offers TXT, SRT, VTT, CSV and JSON. SRT is the one to load into CapCut, Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve if you want to re-edit the clip with styled subtitles.
Limits worth knowing
- Free allowance: 3 videos a month without an account. A free account includes 25 Cloud Requests a month, and one Short uses one request. The unlimited Chrome extension needs desktop Chrome; phone browsers don't run extensions.
- No speech, no captions. A Short that is only music or sound effects has no caption track, and you get a message saying so.
- Brand-new uploads may not have auto-captions yet. Try again later.
- Captionless Shorts with speech can have their audio transcribed on a paid plan, or with AI Units bought as a top-up. The free monthly allowance doesn't cover it.
On a computer
Paste the Short's link into the box above, exactly as on a phone. To use YouTube's own transcript panel instead, convert the Short into a normal watch page:
- Look at your browser address bar when watching a Short:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID - Replace
/shorts/with/watch?v=so the URL becomes:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID - Press Enter. YouTube will load the Short inside the classic desktop video player.
- Click the ... More button in the video description and select Show transcript.
This trick bypasses the vertical Shorts reel player and gives you access to the standard desktop sidebar transcript panel.
Inside the YouTube app
For some Shorts the YouTube app offers its own transcript, but it's buried, and YouTube moves the control between app versions:
- Open the Short in the YouTube mobile app.
- Tap the three dots (⋮) and choose Description.
- Scroll to the bottom of the description. If YouTube offers one for this Short, you will see Show transcript.
- Tap it to open the timestamped caption drawer.
The drawer is fine for reading, but you can't select and copy all of its text at once. If you need the words somewhere else, the Share → Copy link route above is quicker. If the button isn't there, that doesn't mean the Short has no captions. See transcript not showing.
Do all YouTube Shorts have transcripts?
Most Shorts have transcripts, but there are two main exceptions:
- Music-only Shorts: If a Short consists only of background music or sound effects with no spoken dialogue, YouTube's speech recognition will not generate a caption track.
- Brand-new uploads: YouTube generates auto-captions after upload, not during it, so a Short published minutes ago may not have a transcript yet. Try again later.
If a video has spoken words but no captions, VidWords can transcribe the audio directly for accounts on a paid plan or AI Processing Units bought as a top-up (the free monthly allowance does not cover it).
Repurposing YouTube Shorts transcripts
Once you have the clean text of a Short, you can:
- Create social posts: Turn a short video insight into an X thread or LinkedIn post.
- Generate study notes: Paste into ChatGPT or Claude with a prompt like "Summarize the key takeaway from this Short in 2 bullet points".
- Burn subtitles into clips: Download the
.srtfile and load it into CapCut, Premiere Pro, or DaVinci Resolve to re-edit with styled subtitles.
FAQ
Is extracting Shorts transcripts free?
Yes — you can extract up to 25 YouTube Shorts transcripts per month with a free VidWords account (or 3 without signing up), with all export formats included.
Can I download SRT subtitle files for YouTube Shorts?
Yes. VidWords provides exact timestamped .srt and .vtt downloads for any Short with accessible captions.
Can I extract Shorts transcripts in bulk?
Yes, on a Starter plan or above. Paste a list of Shorts links into the bulk extractor and every transcript comes back in one file, or as a ZIP of SRT files. Each Short uses one Cloud Request.
Which phone browsers does it work in?
Any current phone browser works, Safari and Chrome included, because VidWords is an ordinary web page and there's nothing to install. Copy puts the text on your clipboard, and Download saves the file like any other download.