YouTube Transcript Search

Search any YouTube transcript, search every spoken word, and open the exact YouTube moment with fast transcript search.

Find the exact moment something was said without scrubbing through an entire video. YouTube Transcript Search adds a focused caption panel directly to regular YouTube watch pages. 🔎 FIND WORDS IN THE CURRENT VIDEO Open the panel and enter a word or phrase. The YouTube transcript search runs locally in your browser and highlights every matching line. A result counter and previous or next controls let you move between matches without losing your place. ⏱️ JUMP TO THE RIGHT TIMESTAMP Select any result to move the video to that caption timestamp and continue playback. Search YouTube transcripts while watching lectures, tutorials, interviews, podcasts, product reviews, conference talks, or other long videos. 📖 READ ALONG WITH THE VIDEO The full transcript remains next to the player. As playback continues, the current caption segment is highlighted and kept in view. Click any line to jump to that moment, even when no query is active. ⌨️ OPEN THE FIND FIELD FROM THE KEYBOARD Press Command+Shift+F on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+F on Windows and Linux. The shortcut opens the panel and focuses the input field, so you can search a YouTube transcript without reaching for the mouse. 🌐 USE AVAILABLE CAPTION TRACKS The extension works with manual and auto-generated YouTube captions. If a video provides several caption languages, select the track you want to read. Changing the track refreshes the displayed text and matching results for the current video. HOW YOUTUBE TRANSCRIPT SEARCH WORKS 1. Open a regular YouTube video that has captions. 2. Open YouTube Transcript Search or use the keyboard shortcut. 3. Enter a word or exact phrase. 4. Review every matching transcript line. 5. Select a match to jump to its timestamp and continue watching. SEARCH BEHAVIOR * Search is not affected by uppercase or lowercase letters. * Words and phrases are matched inside the available caption text. * Every result is highlighted in the complete reading view. * The active result is visually distinct from the currently spoken line. * Previous and next controls move through results in chronological order. * A counter shows the selected result and the total number of matches. * Clearing the query restores the complete reading view. USE CASES Students can search YouTube transcripts to revisit a definition in a lecture. Researchers can find a quote in a long interview and return to the surrounding context. Developers can locate a command in a tutorial. Content creators can find a topic in their own videos. Podcast viewers can jump directly to a name, product, or subject they remember. When you need to search a YouTube video by transcript, the panel keeps the text, timestamps, and playback together on one page. There is no separate website and no need to download captions before finding the relevant moment. PRIVACY AND DATA HANDLING Transcript parsing, indexing, and lookup happen locally in the browser. The extension does not send caption text, queries, or viewing activity to an external server. It does not create an account or maintain a transcript history. Only lightweight interface preferences, such as panel width and the last selected caption language, may be stored in Chrome. TRANSCRIPT AVAILABILITY YouTube Transcript Search reads caption tracks supplied by YouTube. It does not generate speech-to-text from a video's audio. If YouTube does not provide captions for a video, the panel displays “Transcript unavailable.” Automatic captions may be unavailable when a language is unsupported, the audio is difficult to process, speech overlaps, the video is unusually long, or caption processing has not finished. SCOPE OF THE FIRST VERSION The extension is intentionally focused on one workflow: open the captions, find the relevant text, and jump to a timestamp. It does not add AI summaries, video chat, translation, note taking, transcript downloads, channel-wide lookup, or playlist-wide lookup. Use YouTube Transcript Search when you know what was said but not when it was said.