Transcribe a YouTube video to text: YouTube's own transcript, and three Mac apps

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The fastest way to get a YouTube video as text is YouTube's own transcript. Open the video, and in the description click Show transcript. YouTube Help says that works for any video that has captions. When a video has no captions, or the automatic ones are poor, transcribe it on your Mac instead: MacParakeet and MacWhisper Pro both take a YouTube link, and YapToText takes a video file you already have.

I built YapToText, so read what I say about the other apps with that in mind. Their facts come from their own pages and YouTube's from YouTube Help, read on October 11, 2026.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

Use YouTube's own transcript

  1. Open the video on youtube.com.
  2. In the video description, click Show transcript.
  3. Read along as it scrolls, or click any line to jump to that part of the video.

The transcript is the video's captions, laid out as a page. A video with no captions has no transcript. Captions come either from the creator or from YouTube's automatic captioning.

Why a video has no transcript

YouTube Help lists the reasons a video may have no automatic captions:

  • Still processing. Automatic captions may not be ready when a video is first uploaded.
  • Language. Automatic captions do not support the language in the video.
  • Length. The video is too long.
  • Sound. The sound quality is poor, or YouTube does not recognize the speech.
  • Silence. There is a long silence at the start.
  • Overlap. Several people speak at once, or in several languages.

YouTube also warns that automatic captions can misrepresent what was said, because of mispronunciations, accents, dialects or background noise. It lists automatic captions in dozens of languages, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Japanese and Portuguese among them.

Transcribe it on your Mac

MacParakeet from macparakeet.com, read October 11, 2026. MacWhisper from its help center and pricing page, read October 5 to 10, 2026. YapToText from its own settings.

MacParakeetMacWhisper ProYapToText
Takes a YouTube linkYesYesNo. It takes a file
PriceFree, open source€64 onceFree
Where it transcribesOn the Mac, after fetching the audioOn the MacOn the Mac
OutputText, or SRT and other formatsText and subtitle formatsPlain text, no timestamps
NeedsApple silicon, macOS 14.2 or laterA Mac, Intel includedApple silicon, macOS 14 or later
  • MacParakeet. Paste the link into its Transcribe tab. Its site says it downloads the audio and transcribes on the Mac, with no account and no length cap.
  • MacWhisper Pro. Paste the video's address into the field at the top of the app and press Return. Its help center says age-restricted videos fail, and so do some live or country-specific ones. The MacWhisper YouTube guide has the steps.
  • YapToText. It does not download from YouTube. If the video is yours and you have the file, drop it on the Transcribe a file card for plain text.

A transcript without timestamps

If you want clean paragraphs with no timings, a tool that gives plain text is the short route. YapToText's file transcription returns plain text only, with no timestamps, subtitles or speaker labels, so there is nothing to strip out. It is for a file you have, such as your own upload. Transcribe video to text on a Mac covers formats and long files.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

A video in another language

  • YouTube. Automatic captions exist only in the languages YouTube lists, and a video with several audio tracks gets them in its default language.
  • MacParakeet. 25 European languages with its default engine, and 98 in total with the optional WhisperKit engine.
  • YapToText. 29 languages, with auto-detect.

Whichever you use, transcribe only what you have the right to use. MacParakeet's own page says the same.

The short version

  • Captions exist. Click Show transcript in the description.
  • No captions. Paste the link into MacParakeet, free, or MacWhisper Pro.
  • Your own video file. Drop it into YapToText for plain text.
  • Subtitles. The subtitle generator page lists the apps that export SRT.

If YouTube moves the transcript button, open an issue on GitHub and I will update this page. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

How do I transcribe a YouTube video to text?

Open the video and click Show transcript in the description. That shows the full transcript for any video that has captions.

Why is there no Show transcript on a YouTube video?

The video has no captions. YouTube lists reasons such as an unsupported language, a very long video, poor sound, or captions that are still processing.

Can I transcribe a YouTube video for free on a Mac?

Yes. YouTube's own transcript is free, and MacParakeet is a free, open source Mac app that takes a YouTube link and transcribes on the Mac.

Does YouTube transcribe videos automatically?

YouTube can create automatic captions with speech recognition in the languages it lists. It says their quality may vary and should be reviewed.

Can YapToText transcribe a YouTube link?

No. It transcribes an audio or video file you already have, into plain text.