◆CleanTextKit

YouTube Transcript Cleaner

Paste a transcript copied from YouTube and get clean, readable paragraphs — timestamps, [Music] and [Applause] tags, and broken caption lines removed. Runs entirely in your browser.

TRANSCRIPTYOUTUBERUNS LOCAL

▶On YouTube: expand the description ("...more") → "Show transcript" → select all the text in the panel → copy → paste here. Nothing is fetched from YouTube.

// INPUT

// OPTIONS

// OUTPUT

No text to analyze yet.

How to copy and clean a YouTube transcript

  1. Open the video on YouTube in a desktop browser.
  2. Click ...more to expand the description, then click Show transcript.
  3. Click inside the transcript panel, select all the text, and copy it.
  4. Paste it into the tool above — timestamps and sound tags disappear and lines merge into paragraphs.
  5. Copy the clean transcript or download it as a .txt file.

Example: copied transcript vs clean text

Copied from YouTube
0:00
[Music]
0:04
hey everyone welcome back to the channel
0:07
today we're going to look at how to clean
0:10
up a YouTube transcript
Clean text
hey everyone welcome back to the channel today we're going to look at how to clean up a YouTube transcript

What gets cleaned

  • Timestamps — 0:01, 12:45, and 1:02:15 style lines
  • Sound tags — [Music], [Applause], [Laughter], [Inaudible], and similar
  • Broken caption lines — short lines joined into paragraphs
  • Blank lines — gaps left behind by timestamps
  • Speaker labels — optional, if you want only the spoken words

What people use clean YouTube transcripts for

  • Study notes from lectures and tutorials
  • Turning a video into a blog post or newsletter
  • Quoting a talk or interview accurately
  • Summarizing a long video with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini
  • Translating or proofreading spoken content
// FAQ
How do I get the transcript of a YouTube video?
Open the video on YouTube in a desktop browser. Under the video, expand the description by clicking '...more', scroll to the bottom of it, and click 'Show transcript'. The transcript opens in a panel beside the video. Select all of the text in that panel and copy it. The button only appears when the video has captions (auto-generated or uploaded).
How do I remove timestamps from a YouTube transcript?
Paste the copied transcript into the box above. Every timestamp line — 0:01, 12:45, 1:02:15 — is removed automatically, and the short caption lines are joined into paragraphs. Copy the result or download it as a .txt file.
Can YouTube hide the timestamps for me?
In the transcript panel, the three-dot menu has a 'Toggle timestamps' option that hides them on screen. Copying the text still gives you one short caption per line, though. This tool also merges those lines into readable paragraphs and removes [Music] and [Applause] tags.
Does this tool download transcripts from YouTube?
No. CleanTextKit never contacts YouTube or any other server. You copy the transcript yourself, and all cleaning happens locally in your browser.
Why are there no full stops in my transcript?
Auto-generated YouTube captions often have little or no punctuation. The cleaner still splits long text into paragraphs of about 120 words so it stays readable. For punctuated, polished text, paste the cleaned transcript into an AI assistant and ask it to add punctuation — then run the result through the ChatGPT Text Cleaner.
Can I turn a YouTube transcript into notes or Markdown?
Yes. Clean the transcript here, then use the Transcript to Markdown converter to add headings and structure, or paste it into ChatGPT or Claude to summarize. Clean input gives noticeably better AI summaries.

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