ZUGFeRD

Free video transcript generator

Video Transcript Generator

Drop any video file — MP4, MOV, WEBM, or M4V — and this video transcript generator turns its speech into a clean transcript with timestamps. Your file goes straight from your browser to the speech engine: no server upload, no account, no copy kept. Read online or download TXT, SRT, and VTT.

Drop a video here to transcribe it

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MP4, MOV, WEBM, M4V — up to 250 MB, 30 minutes

Files never storedFree to useNo sign-up
  • MP4, MOV, WEBM, and M4V up to 250 MB
  • Your file never touches our storage
  • Timestamps and three export formats included

Step by step

How this video transcript generator works

Upload a file, wait a moment, get a transcript — the video transcript generator keeps local transcription to four steps.

  1. 1

    Choose or drop your video

    Drag an MP4, MOV, WEBM, or M4V file onto the box above, or click to browse. The video transcript generator checks size and format before anything is sent.

  2. 2

    Press Generate Transcript

    One click starts the job. A short-lived access token is issued, and your browser sends the file directly to the speech-to-text engine — never to our servers.

  3. 3

    Wait for the transcript

    The video transcript generator shows live progress while speech is recognized, punctuated, and formatted into timestamped lines.

  4. 4

    Read, copy, or download

    Read the transcript in the page, copy it to your clipboard, or export TXT, SRT, and VTT files generated right in your browser.

Features

What you get from this video transcript generator

A private, accurate, browser-first video transcript generator for files that live on your device.

All common video formats

The video transcript generator accepts MP4, MOV, WEBM, and M4V — phone recordings, screen captures, exports from any editor.

Browser-direct upload

Your video is streamed straight from your browser to the speech engine. It never passes through our storage and no copy is kept anywhere.

Timestamps on every line

Each transcript line carries its start time — jump to moments, cite precisely, or export full timing as SRT and VTT.

Automatic language detection

Spoken language is detected automatically, so English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and more all flow through the same video transcript generator.

Smart formatting

Recognized speech is punctuated and grouped into readable segments, so the transcript reads like text instead of raw recognition output.

Free with sensible limits

Up to 250 MB and 30 minutes per video, free and account-free — enough for lectures, meetings, interviews, and demos.

Explainer

What is a video transcript generator for local files?

A video transcript generator turns the speech in a video file into written text, aligned with timestamps. The local-file version matters when your video isn't online anywhere: a lecture recording on your laptop, an interview from your camera, a screen recording, or an export from your editor. Instead of uploading to a platform first, you drop the file into the video transcript generator and get the text directly — for notes, subtitles, quotes, documentation, or search.

Privacy is the design center here. When you press Generate, the page requests a short-lived access token from our server, then your browser uploads the video directly to the speech-to-text provider — the file never transits or lands on our infrastructure, and nothing is stored after the job. Recognition runs on a modern speech model with automatic language detection, and the result is normalized into clean segments: punctuation restored, spacing fixed, timings aligned. That's the whole pipeline the video transcript generator runs per file.

From the result card you can read the transcript in plain-text or timestamped view, copy it in one click, or download TXT for documents and SRT/VTT for subtitles. Refreshing the page clears your file — that's expected MVP behavior: the video transcript generator is a tool, not a vault. For videos that are already public online, the platform-specific pages (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) fetch captions without any upload at all.

3
export formats
250 MB
max upload size
6
interface languages
100%
free, no sign-up

Sources:TikTok Help CenterYouTube HelpWebVTT 1.0 (W3C)MDN Web Docs

Reviewed by the ZUGFeRD editorial team · Last updated September 2026

Export formats

Every transcript in three formats

The video transcript generator exports the same transcript in the three formats real workflows expect.

TXT — plain transcript text

A readable document with paragraphs at natural pauses — for notes, quotes, summaries, and translation or AI tools — the default video transcript generator export.

SRT — subtitles for editors

Timed cues that import into Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, and subtitling suites without cleanup.

VTT — web captions

The WebVTT export for HTML5 players and platforms that prefer VTT closed captions.

Use cases

Who uses a video transcript generator

Any file with speech in it becomes searchable, quotable, and captionable once it has a transcript.

Lectures and online courses

Transcribe recorded lessons with the video transcript generator and study by reading, searching, and quoting instead of scrubbing.

Interviews and research

Turn qualitative recordings into analyzable text with timestamps for every answer and claim.

Meetings and webinars

Keep a written record of what was said, who said it when, and export it as clean notes or subtitles.

Creators captioning edits

Generate an SRT from your draft cut with the video transcript generator, restyle it in your editor, and ship accessible video.

FAQ

Video transcript generator FAQ

Common questions about transcribing local video files in the browser.

Transcribe your video now

Drop a video file into the tool at the top of the page and get your transcript in seconds — free, private, no sign-up.

Uploaded files are sent directly from your browser to the speech-to-text provider for transcription. This site does not store a copy of your video, and submitted links are only used to retrieve transcript information.