What is SubExtractor?

A free Chrome extension that turns video into text. It extracts the captions a video already has, or transcribes the audio of a tab on your own computer, and can show live captions over the video.

Nothing. There is no paid plan, no account, no ads and no limit on use.

Which sites does caption extraction work on?

YouTube, TED, Vimeo, Dailymotion, CNN, jw.org, and pages that use standard caption tracks. Support depends on how each site publishes its captions, so it varies.

Which languages does live transcription support?

Arabic, English, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese. You choose the language and download its pack once. There is no automatic language detection.

Does caption extraction have the same language limit?

No. Extraction works with whatever language the video's captions are in.

Is my audio or transcript uploaded?

No. Speech recognition runs in your browser, and transcripts stay on your device. The only network requests are the video site's own caption files and the one-time downloads of language packs and voices.

What does it need to run?

Chrome 116 or later on a desktop computer. Translation, clean-up and summaries additionally need Chrome's built-in AI, which Chrome provides on supported devices in recent versions.

Site Captions found nothing. What now?

The video probably has no caption track, or the site publishes captions in a way SubExtractor does not read. Use Live Transcription for that video instead.

Start Capture says it cannot record the tab. Why?

Chrome only lets an extension capture a tab after you click the extension's icon on that tab. Open the video's tab, click the SubExtractor icon, then start again. Chrome's own pages, such as the Web Store, cannot be captured at all.

The transcript is falling behind the video.

Your computer is not keeping up with the language pack. End the recording, choose the Lighter pack in Settings, and start again.

Can I use it on my phone?

The Chrome extension is desktop only. There is a separate SubExtractor app for iPhone and iPad on the App Store.

How do I remove a language pack?

Open Settings in the side panel, select the pack, and choose Remove selected pack. Removing the extension removes everything it stored.

SubExtractor is built by TapShiftDev, a one-engineer software studio. Speech recognition is by Moonshine (MIT licence); voices are by Kokoro (Apache 2.0); speaker labels use pyannote community-1 (CC BY 4.0).

SubExtractor FAQ: Languages, Requirements, Privacy, Troubleshooting

SubExtractor is a free Chrome extension that extracts a video's existing captions or transcribes a tab on your own computer. These are the questions people ask most, with the fixes for the problems that come up.

Where to start

For a video with captions: get the transcript in one click.
For a video without: transcribe it as it plays.
For captions over the video: turn on live captions.
For the detail behind the price: is it really free?

For anything not covered here, the privacy policy describes exactly what the extension does and does not touch.

Common questions

What is SubExtractor?: A free Chrome extension that turns video into text. It extracts the captions a video already has, or transcribes the audio of a tab on your own computer, and can show live captions over the video.
What does it cost?: Nothing. There is no paid plan, no account, no ads and no limit on use.
Which sites does caption extraction work on?: YouTube, TED, Vimeo, Dailymotion, CNN, jw.org, and pages that use standard caption tracks. Support depends on how each site publishes its captions, so it varies.
Which languages does live transcription support?: Arabic, English, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese. You choose the language and download its pack once. There is no automatic language detection.
Does caption extraction have the same language limit?: No. Extraction works with whatever language the video's captions are in.
Is my audio or transcript uploaded?: No. Speech recognition runs in your browser, and transcripts stay on your device. The only network requests are the video site's own caption files and the one-time downloads of language packs and voices.
What does it need to run?: Chrome 116 or later on a desktop computer. Translation, clean-up and summaries additionally need Chrome's built-in AI, which Chrome provides on supported devices in recent versions.
Site Captions found nothing. What now?: The video probably has no caption track, or the site publishes captions in a way SubExtractor does not read. Use Live Transcription for that video instead.
Start Capture says it cannot record the tab. Why?: Chrome only lets an extension capture a tab after you click the extension's icon on that tab. Open the video's tab, click the SubExtractor icon, then start again. Chrome's own pages, such as the Web Store, cannot be captured at all.
The transcript is falling behind the video.: Your computer is not keeping up with the language pack. End the recording, choose the Lighter pack in Settings, and start again.
Can I use it on my phone?: The Chrome extension is desktop only. There is a separate SubExtractor app for iPhone and iPad on the App Store.
Is the interface available in other languages?: English and Spanish.
How do I remove a language pack?: Open Settings in the side panel, select the pack, and choose Remove selected pack. Removing the extension removes everything it stored.
Who makes it?: SubExtractor is built by TapShiftDev, a one-engineer software studio. Speech recognition is by Moonshine (MIT licence); voices are by Kokoro (Apache 2.0); speaker labels use pyannote community-1 (CC BY 4.0).

SubExtractor questions and troubleshooting

Where to start

Common questions