How to Copy a YouTube Shorts Transcript

How to copy a YouTube Shorts transcript

1. Install Copy YouTube Transcript from the Chrome Web Store. Basic copying is free. Open it from Chrome’s Extensions menu; pin it if you use it often.
2. Open the Short on youtube.com in a desktop Chrome tab. Wait for the video to load, especially if you have just moved to a different Short.
3. Click the extension icon. If you want plain text, open its formatting options and turn off Show timestamps.
4. Select Copy to Clipboard, then paste into your document with Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on Mac.

You do not need to download the video or upload its audio. The extension reads a transcript that is already available on YouTube.

What if the Short has no transcript?

A missing transcript button in YouTube’s interface does not, by itself, tell you whether captions exist. YouTube’s layout can vary. Try the extension on the loaded Short and check its result.

• Check for captions. If the video has no available caption track, the extension cannot extract one.
• Reload after navigating. If the extension shows the previous Short or an error, refresh the current tab and try again.
• Check access. Make sure you can play the video and have allowed the extension to run on YouTube.
• Try another captioned video. If that works, the issue may be specific to the original Short. For a recent upload, you can check again later; captions are not guaranteed to become available.

For ordinary videos, YouTube documents a Show transcript option in the video description when captions are available. See YouTube’s transcript instructions. If no captions exist, you need a separate speech-to-text service; this extension does not provide that function.

Choose the output you need

Keep timestamps when you want to find a quote in the video later. Turn them off for a clean paragraph or notes. Copying captions preserves their wording, including any mistakes in automatically generated captions—check names and quotations against the video.

For formatting examples, see copying transcripts without timestamps. To work with the text in an AI chat, follow our ChatGPT and Claude transcript guide.

Common questions

Does this work in the YouTube mobile app?

This guide is for the Chrome extension on a desktop or laptop. The extension does not run inside the YouTube app on iPhone or Android.

Is copying Shorts transcripts free?

Basic copying and timestamp formatting are free. Optional features, including PDF/Markdown export and the extension’s AI side panel, require Pro.

Does it translate a Short?

Copying a caption track and translating its text are different tasks. Basic copying does not automatically translate the transcript. Choose the available caption language you need, or use a translation tool afterwards.