How to Get a Transcript of YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts are everywhere. But unlike regular YouTube videos, Shorts don't have a "Show Transcript" button. If you need the spoken text from a Short, whether for notes, quoting, or accessibility, you'll need a different approach.

Regular YouTube videos have a three-dot menu below the player with a "Show transcript" option. Shorts use a completely different player interface -- the vertical, swipeable format you know from TikTok and Instagram Reels. In this interface, YouTube simply doesn't surface the transcript feature.

This doesn't mean the captions don't exist. YouTube still generates auto-captions for Shorts behind the scenes. They just don't give you a way to access them through the Shorts player.

You might have seen advice to "watch the Short as a regular video" by modifying the URL. This used to work, but YouTube has been inconsistent about supporting it. The most reliable method is to use a tool that directly extracts the caption data.

TubeScript treats Shorts exactly like regular videos. The process is identical:

1. Copy the Shorts URL. Open the Short in your browser or the YouTube app and copy the link. It will look like youtube.com/shorts/xxxxxxxxx or a regular video URL.
2. Go to tubescript.cc and paste the URL into the input field.
3. Click "Get Transcript." Within a few seconds, you'll have the full spoken text from the Short, formatted as clean paragraphs.
4. Copy or download. Use the copy button to grab the text or download it as a file.

That's it. No URL tricks, no workarounds, no extensions. Shorts URLs work the same as any other YouTube URL in TubeScript.

• Content repurposing. Turning Shorts into blog posts, tweets, or newsletter content. The transcript gives you the raw text to work with.
• Quoting and citing. If someone said something noteworthy in a Short, having the exact text is useful for articles, presentations, or social media.
• Accessibility. Some viewers prefer reading to watching. A transcript makes the content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are in environments where they can't play audio.
• Research and note-taking. Students and researchers who encounter useful information in Shorts can save and search the text rather than rewatching. See how students use transcripts.
• SEO and subtitling. Creators who want to add captions to their Shorts can use the extracted transcript as a starting point for subtitle files.

• Shorts with only music (no speech) will produce an empty or minimal transcript, since there's nothing to transcribe.
• Shorts with text overlays (no spoken audio) won't have a transcript either. The transcript captures spoken words, not on-screen text.
• Very short Shorts (under 5 seconds) may have incomplete auto-captions. YouTube's auto-captioning works better with longer content.

For a complete guide to getting transcripts from all types of YouTube content, check out our complete YouTube transcript guide.