Video to Text
Extract the speech from a video as editable text. Drop in an MP4, WebM or other video; the audio track is decoded in your browser and transcribed by a local AI model — nothing is uploaded, so even a long lecture recording or meeting export stays private and costs nothing. Download the result as plain text or as SRT/VTT subtitles.
First use downloads a 77 MB speech model, then your browser caches it.
How to convert video to text
- Drop in a video file — MP4, WebM and most desktop formats work.
- Choose the model size and spoken language, then click Transcribe.
- Copy the transcript or download it as TXT, SRT or VTT.
About this video-to-text converter
This converter runs OpenAI's open-source Whisper model in the browser via WebAssembly. The first run downloads your chosen model size (41–249 MB, then cached); after that, transcription is a purely local computation. It's the same technology transcription services charge monthly for — minus the upload.
Video transcription shines for meetings, lectures, interviews and screen recordings: search the text instead of scrubbing the timeline, quote people accurately, or turn a talk into an article. Use auto-detect for mixed-language footage, or set the language explicitly for the best accuracy on single-language recordings.
Frequently asked questions
Which video formats work?
Whatever your browser can play: MP4 works in every modern desktop browser; WebM works in Chrome, Edge and Firefox; MOV and others depend on the codecs your system ships. Only the audio track is read — the pictures are ignored entirely. If a video won't decode, extract its audio first (this site has a dedicated extract-audio tool) and transcribe the MP3.
Is the video uploaded to a server?
No. The file is opened locally: your browser decodes the soundtrack and the speech model runs on your own device. That matters for meetings and lectures — you can transcribe confidential footage without it touching anyone's cloud.
Can I get subtitles instead of plain text?
Yes — the same transcription exports as SRT or WebVTT with timestamps, ready to load into a player or editor, or to publish alongside the video. Use the format buttons above the result to switch.
How long can the video be?
Up to 300 MB of file — that comfortably covers an hour or two of typical MP3 audio, but compressed video reaches the cap much sooner. For a long video, extract the audio track first (see the extract-audio tool) and transcribe that instead. Processing happens on your machine, so long files take a while on slower devices — the progress bar shows how far along it is, minute by minute.