A free video to text converter that writes out what's said in any video, with a time on every line, on your own device.
Drop a video and Whisper writes out what's said, with a time on every line and the video beside it. Nothing is uploaded.
Add your recording
Private: nothing leaves your device. The model downloads once (77 MB) and your browser keeps it.
This free video to text converter writes out what's said in any video, with a time on every line, on your own device.
Drop an MP4, MOV or WebM, and Whisper turns its sound into text in your browser, with the video playing beside it. Nothing is uploaded.
Here's how it works, and how to get captions out of it for YouTube or your editor.
What is a video to text converter?
A video to text converter turns the speech in a video into written text. This one keeps the time of every line, so it doubles as a caption file.
It runs Whisper, OpenAI's speech recognition model, on the video's sound. The picture never leaves your screen.
Captions from a video
SRT and VTT are the caption files YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn and every video editor take. Download either, and upload it with your video.
Each caption line keeps Whisper's times, so it's in sync from the start. Check names and numbers before you publish.
On your device or on our server
The page opens on your device. Whisper, OpenAI's speech recognition model, runs in your browser, and the file never leaves it.
For long files, pick On our server. The sound goes in 2-minute pieces to Groq's Whisper and comes back as text in seconds.
| On this device | On our server | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy | Nothing leaves your device | Sent in pieces, not kept |
| Download | 77 MB once, or 563 MB for Best | None |
| Length | No limit | Up to 30 minutes a file |
| Cost | Free | Free, within a daily limit |
Groq, the company that runs the server's Whisper, says in its data policy that "by default, Groq does not retain customer data for inference requests." We don't keep the sound either.
Standard or Best
Standard is whisper-base, a 77 MB download that runs in any modern browser. On a 2021 MacBook Pro, it wrote a 23-second clip in 5 seconds.
Best is whisper-large-v3-turbo, 563 MB, on browsers with WebGPU. It wrote 100 seconds in 10, and a Spanish clip word for word, after its download.
| Model | Download | Runs on | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 77 MB | Any modern browser | Quick notes, clear speech |
| Best | 563 MB | Browsers with WebGPU | Names, accents, other languages |
Without WebGPU, Best is whisper-small, 249 MB, which is slower. Each model downloads once, and your browser keeps it.
Languages
Whisper was trained on "680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervision," says its paper. The language list has every language it knows, from Afrikaans to Yoruba.
Leave it on Detect it, and the tool hears the language in the first words and keeps it for the rest. Pick the language when you know it: names and short clips come out better.
Files it takes
Anything your browser can read: MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, Opus, MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV. A video's sound is read, and the picture stays on your screen to play along.
The file is read in parts, so an hour-long recording works on a computer. A phone can take longer on the device, and On our server is quicker there.
Timestamps you can press
Every line keeps its time. Press a time and the video plays from there, and the line being said lights up as it plays.
Download it as plain text, Markdown, SRT or VTT.
Get a cleaner transcript
- Pick the language – when you know it, instead of Detect it.
- Use Best – for names, accents and anything but clear English.
- Record close to the mic – your voice rises above the room's noise.
Two things cost the most words:
- Music under the voice – Whisper can drop words, or invent a line in a long music break.
- People talking over each other – Whisper follows one voice at a time.
After that, Add punctuation in step 3 tidies the text in your own AI, without changing a word.
Translate it
Translate to, under the file, turns the transcript into 1 of 30 languages. AI on our server translates the text line by line, so every time stays right and the SRT still lines up.
Only the text is sent, never the recording. For English from any language in one step, use the audio translator.
After you convert
Pull quotes and posts from it with the asks in step 3. For a video that's online, paste its link in the video transcript generator instead, and skip the download.
Who is the video to text converter for?
It's for anyone who needs the words from a video:
- Video caption generator – creators adding subtitles
- Audio to text converter – people with audio files
- Video summarizer – anyone who only needs the key points
- YouTube timestamp generator – creators adding chapters
The rest of my tools are on the free tools page.
Do more with your recording
Dictate on your Mac with
Video to text converter FAQs
Questions about the video to text converter? Here's what to know.
A video to text converter turns the speech in a video into written text.
This one keeps the time of every line, so it doubles as a caption file.
Drop the video, then download SRT or VTT.
Upload the file with your video on YouTube, Vimeo or LinkedIn.
MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV, and any other video your browser can read.
Only the sound is read, and the picture stays on your screen.
Yes, paste it in the video transcript generator instead.
This page is for video files on your computer.
Yes, this video to text converter is free, with no account and no limit on your device.
On our server, each visitor gets 40 minutes a day.
No, not on this device: Whisper runs in your browser and the file never leaves it.
On our server, the sound is sent in pieces, written out, and not kept.
A translation sends the text only.
No, Whisper writes what's said without names.
Add the names yourself in the text, or in your editor.
This video to text converter is for anyone who makes or studies video:
- Podcast transcript generator – podcasters who need show notes and quotes.
- Audio converter – anyone who records and edits audio.
- Audio recorder – people who record interviews and notes in the browser.
Teachers and researchers use it to quote a lecture or an interview, and the video never leaves their computer.
I did.
I'm Navid Moazzez, and the video to text converter is one of my free tools on navid.me.
Read more about me.
There's an audio to text converter, a video to text converter, speech to text, a voice memo to text converter, Spanish transcription, an audio translator and a podcast transcript generator.
The rest are in free tools.
Navid Moazzez
AI business strategist & AI OS builder
Navid Moazzez helps creators and founders master AI and build their own AI Operating System (AI OS) to automate their business and life.
Navid.me is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.
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