How to transcribe a video on iPhone

Transcribe Video to Text · 4 min read

You are watching a video on your iPhone and want the words as text you can save. The iPhone hints that it can do this, but the built-in tools stop short of an actual transcript. Here is what they really do, and the reliable free way to get one.

What the iPhone can and can't do

Two features look like they should help, and both fall short of a saved transcript:

• Live Captions shows subtitles on screen as audio plays, but it does not save them. Once the video ends, the text is gone.
• Voice Memos can transcribe a recording, but that is your own audio, not a video you are watching, and it has no timestamps or export options to speak of.

So there is no simple, native "transcribe this video" button that gives you an editable, copyable transcript. That is the honest limit of the on-phone tools.

The reliable way: transcribe it in Chrome

The dependable route is to open the same video on a computer and use a browser extension. Transcribe Video to Text turns the audio into a full transcript with timestamps in one click.

1. On a computer, open the same video in Chrome. Most videos you find on an iPhone (YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok and more) are online, so you just open the link.
2. Add the Transcribe Video to Text extension.
3. Click it. The video is transcribed into text with timestamps, laid out by speaker.
4. Copy the transcript, or export to Word, TXT or SRT.

Why the browser route is better anyway

Even setting the iPhone limits aside, doing it in Chrome gives you things the phone cannot: a transcript split by speaker with timestamps, and export to Word, TXT or SRT for subtitles. For YouTube and Vimeo the captions are pulled right in your browser, so nothing is uploaded for those. It reads like a script instead of a live caption that vanishes.

Related

See how to get a YouTube transcript, how to transcribe a TikTok video, and whether ChatGPT can transcribe a video.