How to Copy Text From a YouTube Video (3 Easy Ways)

YouTube does not let you highlight what someone says in a video, and copying from the built-in transcript panel is clumsy. Whether you need the whole transcript, one exact quote, or text that appears on screen, here are three quick ways to copy text from a YouTube video.

Method 1: Copy the full transcript in one click

1. Copy the video link from your browser’s address bar or the Share button.
2. Paste it into our YouTube Video Transcript Generator.
3. Choose how you want the text to look:
   • Lines keeps each caption on its own line.
   • Paragraphs joins captions into readable paragraphs.
   • Timestamps on or off decides whether times like [2:15] are included.
4. Press Copy. What you see on screen is exactly what is copied.

Paste the result into Google Docs, Word, Notion, an email or an AI chat. If you would rather keep a file, use Download → Text (.txt).

Method 2: Copy a single quote

Often you only need one sentence. In the transcript generator:

• Search for a word you remember from the quote. Every match is highlighted, and the arrows jump between them.
• Hover over the line and click its copy icon (on phones the icon is always visible). Only that line is copied, with its timestamp if timestamps are on.
• Or select text with your mouse. Timestamps are not included when you select, so you get clean words.

Before you quote someone, press play on the line to hear it and confirm the captions got it right. This matters most with auto-generated captions.

Method 3: Copy text shown on screen

A transcript contains spoken words only. Text that appears in the picture, such as slides, code or a recipe card, is not part of the captions. To copy that:

1. Pause the video on the frame with the text.
2. Take a screenshot (Win + Shift + S on Windows, Cmd + Shift + 4 on Mac, or your phone’s screenshot shortcut).
3. Use a text-recognition feature to copy it: Live Text on iPhone and Mac, Google Lens on Android and Chrome, or the Text Extractor in Microsoft PowerToys on Windows.

Copying from YouTube’s own transcript panel

On a computer you can open Show transcript under the video and drag to select text. It works for short passages, but the panel scrolls as you select, timestamps get mixed into the text, and long transcripts are tedious to copy. On the YouTube mobile app you cannot select transcript text at all. That is why a dedicated tool is usually faster.

Clean up copied text

• Add punctuation. Auto-generated captions often have none. Paste the text into an AI assistant and ask it to add punctuation without changing any words.
• Remove filler words such as “um” and “you know” if you are publishing the text, but keep them in exact quotes.
• Fix names and terms. Speech recognition often misspells people, brands and technical words.

Is it okay to copy text from a YouTube video?

Copying text for personal notes, study, research or accessibility is common. Quoting short passages with credit is generally accepted. Republishing a full transcript of someone else’s video as your own content is not, so ask the creator first. See how to quote and cite a YouTube video.

Frequently Asked Questions