How to Download YouTube Auto-generated & Translated Subtitle

Subtitles are an important part of viewing experience on YouTube, especially when you are watching a video and can’t fully grasp the meaning of the content. It’s also a good medium for learning a foreign language. Want to download YouTube videos & subtitles offline for good language learning? Then you’re in the right place. Because I’m going to show you 5 proven strategies to download YouTube subtitles/ closed captions.

Before I talk about these YouTube subtitle downloader tools, there are something that you need to know about YouTube subtitle. Some videos have built-in subtitles as part of themselves, while others have independent subtitles specially created for the videos. They are also some videos which contain no subtitle, but YouTube adopts the speech recognition algorithm – to automatically translate spoken words in the video to readable text, that’s called auto-generated subtitle. As these automatic captions are generated by machine learning algorithms, so the quality of the captions may not be ensured.

List of 5 best YouTube subtitle downloader tools in 2023

1. Gihosoft TubeGet

The first recommendation I’d like to talk is Gihosoft TubeGet, a YouTube video downloader & converter for YouTube. This tool is used to save videos from many popular online video sharing sites, including YouTube, Vimeo, Lynda, Bilibili, Vevo and many more. Even if the YouTube videos are lengthy, you can instruct Gihosoft TubeGet to download multiple clips at the same time. Once the task is finished, you can directly play the video without leaving this window.

More importantly, it supports to downloading subtitles from YouTube in SRT or VTT format, and it’s very easy to operate because of its straightforward interface. You just copy and paste the video link into the program manually, select video resolution, check “Download subtitle” box and choose a language, finally tab the “Download” button to start the video & subtitle download process. With an one-click download mode, you can download the subtitle file in specified language from a single video or a whole YouTube playlist.

download youtube subtitle 2021

It has both Windows and Mac versions, and it’s totally secure and won’t collect any of your private information.

WindowsFree DownloadWin Version MacFree DownloadMac Version

2. 4K Video Downloader

As the world’s biggest online video container, YouTube is a great place for those who are not English native speakers to learn English. Many of them like to download these videos offline so that they can replay and pause the videos whenever they are lacking of understanding of the content. The bad news is that the videos downloaded contain no subtitle, which may be not friendly to those who are not proficient in English. So it will be a good helper if one has a free YouTube subtitle downloader in hand. Well, here I will recommend another subtitle extractor tool – 4K Video Downloader.

4K Video Downloader has all the features you need on saving YouTube subtitle as SRT files. It can help users to extract auto-generated subtitles or download the translated closed captions in different languages completely free of cost. Aside from that, 4K Video Downloader is also an all-in-one site for keeping videos from popular video hosting sites, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram & SoundCloud etc. With an In-app proxy server, it can help users to save videos that are blocked in their country or region. And another important bright spot about this software is that it supports the download of 3D & 360°videos, which will be a big boon for whose who like to explore the new visual experience. With succinct interface and intuitive layout, any one who has a computer can get the most out of it on Windows, Mac & Ubuntu platforms.

save youtube auto-generated subtitle

3. DownSub

Unlike Gihosoft TubeGet or 4K Video Downloader, DownSub is an online site specially for users to download subtitle from popular video sharing sites. You can only utilize it to get subtitles, and can’t download the videos at the same time. It supports gain subtitles from Youtube, DailyMotion, DramaFever, ViKi, VLive, Facebook & Tv.Naver etc. Besides, this site is cross-platform, and it’s completely compatible with Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices.

As an online YouTube subtitle downloader, the name DownSub just definitely describes it’s job, so those who enter into this site won’t have any doubt if they have come into a wrong place. The interface is quite concise and intuitive, and it also lists the video sites it can support. With this powerful online website in hand, one can extract SRT subtitle files from their favorite videos breezily.

download subtitle from youtube in SRT format

How to download subtitle from YouTube in SRT format with DownSub:

  1. Copy the link of your favorite video from YouTube and then enter into this site, and paste the link into the specified box, click the “Download”
  2. Then you will be given a list of options – subtitles of different languages or “translate from English to”. Click your targeted language subtitle, then a pop-up will prompt you to choose the download location and rename the file.
  3. The last step, click the “Save”button to keep the subtitle file on your device. The subtitle format is SRT.

download youtube closed caption

4. LilSubs

Do you really need an entire software program installed on your computer in order to download YouTube closed captions? No, a web-browser extension would suffice. LilSubs is a good alternative if you’re looking for an online YouTube subtitle downloader. As a web application, it’s very flexible because you can use it on your Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Android, iPhone, iPad platforms as long as you install a browser, Chrome, Firefox, IE or other browser are all OK.

With it, you can easily save videos on your computer or mobile devices with subtitles for its simple operations, this makes the website more accessible to all users. It’s capable of extracting auto-generated subtitles and get the closed captions. Another thing that LilSubs is different from DownSub is that it incorporates the function of downloading the video at the same time.

Moreover, the process of downloading video is very simple and straightforward, you don’t have to download or install any type of extensions or third party software, just copy and paste the video URL, then it will download the subtitle file to your destination folder.

download youtube closed caption

5. SaveSubs

The last free YouTube subtitle downloader tool I’d like to recommend is SaveSubs, it’s really one of the best YouTube subtitle downloader that are available in the Internet. Not just for downloading auto-generated or attached subtitles of from a YouTube video, it’s also highlighted by features of downloading the subtitle file as SRT format, or in TXT format without timestamp.

Like the other online subtitle downloader websites, SaveSubs also comes with an intuitive interface. The entire operation is highly simple, and any one can save the subtitle file in any of the available languages without a glitch no matter if you are a computer beginner or guru.

download youtube subtitle as text without timestamp

The Verdict

I’ve shown you 5 of the best desktop and online tools for saving YouTube subtitles/closed captions in 2023, but these are only a small part. There are still many similar tools available that can do the same thing smoothly, I’d like to know what else you would add to this list. As always, you can leave your tips, recommendations, and opinions in the comment section below.

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