Accurate AI transcription for any YouTube video
Auto-captions missing or garbled? Get a clean, accurate transcript straight from the audio with AI speech-to-text — timestamped, searchable, copy or download.
Auto-captions garbled, machine-translated, or missing entirely? This tool runs real AI speech-to-text on a YouTube video's audio and returns a clean, timestamped transcript — far more accurate than YouTube's auto-generated captions on accents, technical talks, music, and noisy audio. Paste the URL, and once it finishes you can search, copy, or download the text. It's credit-based (transcription uses real compute); new accounts start with free credits.
How to transcribe a YouTube video with STT
- 1Paste the video URL — any YouTube video — especially ones with bad or missing captions.
- 2We run speech-to-text — veridive transcribes the audio with AI (auto-detecting the spoken language). It's usually ready in under a minute, even for long videos.
- 3Get your transcript — an accurate, timestamped transcript you can search, copy, or download as text.
Why use it
- Better than auto-captions — real speech recognition beats YouTube's auto-generated captions on accents, jargon, and noisy audio.
- Works when there are no captions — it generates the transcript from the audio, so videos with no caption track still work.
- Timestamped & searchable — every line is timestamped — click to jump, search the text, copy or download.
- More than a transcript — the text lands in veridive, ready to summarize, search, and question across your library.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the YouTube Transcript Extractor?+
The [YouTube Transcript Extractor](https://veridive.com/tools/transcript) pulls a video's *existing* captions — free, instant, but only as good as the captions YouTube already has. STT Transcription runs *real* speech recognition on the audio, so it works when the captions are missing, auto-translated, or low quality.
Is it free, and how do credits work?+
Transcription runs real speech recognition (which uses compute), so it's credit-based: new accounts get free credits to start, then the cost depends on the video's length — about 150 credits per hour of audio (a 10-minute video is roughly 25 credits). This differs from the free, no-sign-up caption tools.
How accurate is it?+
Very accurate on clear speech, and noticeably better than YouTube's auto-captions on accents, technical vocabulary, overlapping speakers, and background noise. Real-world accuracy still depends on the recording — for anything critical, skim the transcript against the audio.
What languages does it support?+
It auto-detects and transcribes the spoken language across the major world languages — no need to set it manually.
How long does it take?+
It runs in the background and is usually ready in under a minute, even for long videos. Keep the tab open; the transcript appears when it's done.
Can I transcribe a podcast, interview, or lecture on YouTube?+
Yes — those are exactly what it's for. Get clean, searchable text you can turn into notes, quotes, a summary, or a blog post with the other veridive tools.
Can I download the transcript?+
Yes — copy the full text to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file. Every line keeps its timestamp.