How to Transcribe YouTube Shorts (2026)
YouTube Shorts are short vertical videos, and many of them have auto-generated captions while others do not. To transcribe a YouTube Short, paste its public link into JotVox. If captions exist, JotVox grabs them for free; if not, it runs AI speech-to-text on the audio. Either way you get a timestamped transcript you can export.
Captions are free, AI transcription is a credit
When a Short already has captions, JotVox pulls that text with no sign-up and no credit. When a Short has none, which is common for quick uploads, JotVox transcribes the audio with AI for 1 credit at about 98%+ accuracy on clear speech. Fast talking, music, or background noise can lower accuracy, and since Shorts are brief, most fit well within limits.
Steps to transcribe a YouTube Short
1. Open the Short and copy its URL from the Share button or the address bar.
2. Paste it into JotVox for YouTube.
3. JotVox checks for captions first, then falls back to AI transcription in the original language, auto-detected across 99 languages.
4. Export the transcript as TXT, SRT, or VTT, or download the audio as MP3.
5. Add an optional AI summary for 1 credit if you want key points and quotes.
Why transcribe a Short
- Repurpose a Short into a caption, post, or blog snippet
- Add uploaded subtitles using the SRT or VTT export
- Save the script of your own Shorts for reuse
- Quote a creator accurately
- Make a batch of Shorts searchable
Good to know
The link must be public, so private or unlisted Shorts will not process. There is a 90-minute cap per transcription, which no Short will hit, and audio is not stored after processing. The daily free AI transcription covers videos up to 10 minutes, which comfortably includes any Short. If a Short has no captions, getting text from a video with no captions walks through the AI route.