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How to download only subtitles of videos using youtube-dl

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How can I download subtitles of a list of videos using youtube-dl? I need an option for this.
However I could not find an option to download only subtitles
204
youtube-dl

81 Share Improve this question edited Jul 24, 2017 at 19:32 asked Jun 13, 2015 at 17:22
Follow user598527 fivetech
3,506 14 44 87 2,193 2 11 5

18 the option is --skip-download

– 尤川豪
Oct 1, 2015 at 8:57

2 Maybe because he already downloaded the videos, and doesn't want to download them again, just
wants to download the subtitles now because he didn't get them before. That's why I'm using this
option.
– spacefaced
May 8, 2020 at 1:11

Or it messed up the --embed-subtitles step so I want to download them again separately. (Iʼd file
a bug report but the repoʼs down for the moment)
– Daniel H
Oct 28, 2020 at 17:25

@Prometheus … Perhaps because YouTube subtitles are not in the standard .srt format, he got the YT
timestamped formant, now wants .srt … I'm here because I have vids that have no subtitles, so I want
to get them easily.
– Rowe Morehouse
Nov 16, 2020 at 4:56

@HashimAziz Judging use-cases is not an answerer's job.

– felwithe
Jun 5, 2021 at 18:16

Sorted by:
4 Answers
Highest score (default)

There is an option, clearly mentioned in the documention:

250
Subtitle Options:

--write-sub Write subtitle file

--write-auto-sub Write automatic subtitle file (YouTube only)

--all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the video

--list-subs List all available subtitles for the video

--sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats preference, for

example: "srt" or "ass/srt/best"

--sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (optional)

separated by commas, use IETF language tags like 'en,pt'

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9/23/22, 12:24 PM How to download only subtitles of videos using youtube-dl - Super User

So for example, to list all subs for a video:

youtube-dl --list-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye8mB6VsUHw

To download all subs, but not the video:

youtube-dl --all-subs --skip-download https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye8mB6VsUHw

Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jun 13, 2015 at 18:04
l'L'l
3,000 1 14 9

61 I gave the docs a fair look and didn't find the --skip-download option which is hidden under
Verbosity / Simulation Options. Glad @fivetech asked this question, or I may still be stuck.
– Zaz
Aug 7, 2016 at 19:04

9 how to download autogenerated subtitles?

– brauliobo
Sep 7, 2017 at 17:39

4 It's clearly "mentioned in documentation" and "clearly mentioned in this answer": "--write-auto-sub
Write automatic subtitle file (YouTube only)"
– radekg
Sep 16, 2017 at 7:41

16 @brauliobo --write-auto-sub from documentation, youtube-dl --sub-lang LANG --write-

auto-sub --skip-download URI .
– Pablo A
Jan 13, 2018 at 18:35

5 youtube-dl --sub-lang en --write-auto-sub --sub-format srt --skip-download

v0uYZ4rTOrk 1. get ENG subtitles 2. get auto-generated subtitles 3. get subtitles in srt format 4. do
not download the movie
– deadfish
Mar 21, 2019 at 16:14

Or you can only download one subtitle

58 youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download URL

Share Improve this answer edited Oct 3, 2018 at 9:43 answered Aug 29, 2018 at 16:22
Follow m3asmi
681 5 4

21 Or --write-auto-sub for downloading the automatically generated subtitles!

– Lenar Hoyt
Nov 22,
2019 at 16:19

@pouya will your option download both autogenerated and proper subtitles of english lang, for
example?
– Edward Torvalds
Feb 1, 2021 at 7:10

just run the following command

17 youtube-dl --write-auto-sub --convert-subs=srt --skip-download URL

For example you are downloading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=example. with title
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9/23/22, 12:24 PM How to download only subtitles of videos using youtube-dl - Super User

"example"
--convert=srt will output to a file named example.en.srt where en stands for
English es for Spanish etc.

The file will have something like this:

00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:05.259

>> I’m Elon Musk.

00:00:05.259 --> 00:00:06.669

>> What is your claim to fame?

00:00:06.669 --> 00:00:07.669

>> I’m the founder of

00:00:07.669 --> 00:00:08.669

Tesla.com.

OPTIONAL - If you need the text to be cleaned up you can use python to clean it a little:

import re

bad_words = ['-->','</c>']

with open('example.en.vtt') as oldfile, open('newfile.txt', 'w') as newfile:

for line in oldfile:

if not any(bad_word in line for bad_word in bad_words):

newfile.write(line)

with open('newfile.txt') as result:

uniqlines = set(result.readlines())

with open('sub_out.txt', 'w') as rmdup:

mylst = map(lambda each: each.strip("&gt;&gt;"), uniqlines)

print(mylst)

rmdup.writelines(set(mylst))

Output newfile.txt:

I’m Elon Musk.

What is your claim to fame?

I’m the founder of

Tesla.com.

Share Improve this answer edited Jun 7, 2021 at 14:54 answered Apr 14, 2020 at 1:16
Follow He Hernan Pesantez
Pesan 179 1 3

1 Just as a markup from the doc: --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the

subtitles to other format (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt|lrc)
– lkahtz
May 4, 2020
at 2:50

7 convert subs doesn't seem to work if you use the --skip-download option it just gives it in vtt format
– pt123
Aug 29, 2020 at 22:50

4 In my case, I still need to run ffmpeg -i foo.vtt foo.srt to convert caption manually.
– 林果皞
Feb 25, 2021 at 22:23

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9/23/22, 12:24 PM How to download only subtitles of videos using youtube-dl - Super User

1 @pt123 not working open issue: github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/9073

– Tilo
Jun 12, 2021 at 4:26

2 After some testing, I can say that 1) --convert-subs switch doesn't work with the --skip-
download one; 2) anyway youtube-dl uses ffmpeg (or avconv from the dead Libav project) to
do the subtitle conversion, so the ffmpeg -i foo.vtt foo.srt produces the equal srt file; 3) both
--convert-subs=srt and --convert-subs srt options works.
– Ivan Shatsky
Dec 16, 2021 at
0:48

Another simple way to download subtitles from YouTube is to download Google2SRT.

Google2SRT is a free, open source program for Windows, Mac and Linux that is able to
5 download, save and convert multiple subtitles from YouTube videos.

Usage
Click the links to see screenshots of steps 1 and 2.

1. Paste the URL in the Google subtitles text box and click Read.

2. Choose the language by selecting the appropriate check box provided and press Go.

3. View the destination folder that was input in the SRT subtitles textbox to locate the SRT
files.

Share Improve this answer edited Jun 12, 2020 at 13:48 answered Nov 18, 2015 at 5:56
Follow Community Bot jegadesh
1 99 1 2

9 The issue with this is that it only works with YouTube; youtube-dl supports hundreds of other sites.
– Hayden Schiff
Nov 14, 2016 at 2:48

9 The question is about youtube-dl.

– user598527
Apr 18, 2017 at 20:53

1 Thanks so much, jegadesh! Google2SRT is just what I needed to download auto-generated closed
captions/subtitles from YouTube, since youtube-dl does not handle them properly (instead returning foo
has no subtitles).
– Miles Wolbe
Feb 4, 2018 at 6:31

3 @miles-wolbe I'd appreciate it if you could mention a YouTube video where youtube-dl failed.
– naki
Mar 19, 2019 at 7:37

1 @PhaniRithvij nope, # youtube-dl --write-auto-sub --skip-download

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv99gj1xxWw works fine on 2021.04.17
– pzkpfw
Apr 25,
2021 at 9:11

Highly active question. Earn 10 reputation (not counting the association bonus) in order to answer this
question. The reputation requirement helps protect this question from spam and non-answer activity.

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