TubryaWhy some YouTube videos have no transcript
YouTube builds its transcript from the video's captions. When there are no captions, there is nothing to show. That happens when:
- the video was uploaded recently and automatic captions haven't been created yet,
- the creator turned captions off, or the language isn't supported by YouTube's speech recognition,
- the audio is hard to recognize: music, several people speaking, or more than one language.
Even when automatic captions exist, they can be wrong. In our own test, a one-minute video switched from English to Turkish. YouTube's captions handled the English part, then wrote "Foreign speech" for the whole Turkish part.
- to make the test a little harder. Now, let's switch to Turkish. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. formizer.
- The background music is playing on purpose to make the test a little harder.
- Now let's switch to Turkish.
- Merhaba, şimdi Türkçe konuşuyorum.
- Bu videonun ikinci yarısı tamamen Türkçe.
Our test video: English and Turkish speech over background music, about 120 words. The AI transcript had one wrong word.
Your options
| Option | Good for | Downside |
|---|---|---|
| Wait for automatic captions | Recent uploads in common languages | Can take hours, may never appear, quality varies |
| Download the audio and use a transcription app | Your own videos | Several steps, and downloading other people's videos may break YouTube's terms |
| Tubrya AI transcription | Any public video up to 60 minutes | Pro or Lifetime plan; public videos only |
How to transcribe a YouTube video without captions
- Add Tubrya to Chrome. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store and sign in with Google from the panel.
- Open the video on YouTube. Open the video page (youtube.com/watch?v=…). For a Short, change /shorts/ in the address to /watch?v= to open it on the full video page.
- Press Transcribe with AI. If the video has no captions, the button appears right away. If it only has automatic captions, press Get transcript first, then use the button under the transcript.
- Use the transcript. Lines appear with timestamps as they are written. Click a line to jump there, search it, copy it, download TXT, SRT or VTT, or summarize it.
Try it on a video that has no transcript button.
Add to ChromeWhat happens to the video
Tubrya doesn't download or store the video. It sends the public video link and its length to Google's Gemini AI, which opens the video directly from YouTube. The finished transcript is kept in a shared cache for up to 30 days, linked to the video and not to you, so the next person who asks for the same video gets it instantly without using minutes. Details are in our privacy policy.
Limits to know
- Public videos only. Private, unlisted, age-restricted or region-blocked videos can't be opened.
- Up to 60 minutes per video. Live streams work after they have ended.
- Pro: 300 minutes a month. Lifetime: 120 minutes a month. See pricing.