Do I have to install anything?

No. The URL swap works in any browser without an extension or download. The bookmarklet is optional — it's faster but the URL trick alone is enough.

Does this work on mobile?

Yes. The URL swap works on Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on iOS and Android. The bookmarklet is harder on mobile because most mobile browsers hide the bookmarks bar; on those, copy the bookmarklet source from the homepage and add it as a regular bookmark, then tap it from the address bar suggestions.

Can I make my browser swap the domain automatically?

Yes — use a browser extension like Redirector or a userscript that rewrites youtube.com/watch to ytscribe.io/watch. That's a heavier setup than the bookmarklet but it works without any clicks at all.

What if the video doesn't have captions?

ytscribe shows a clear message — 'No captions yet' or 'Captions disabled by uploader' — and links back to the YouTube video so you can confirm. Music videos get a music-specific message because most labels disable captions on music uploads.

Get a YouTube transcript without pasting anything

Pasting a YouTube URL into a third-party site is the slow way. The fast way is to swap one word in the URL bar — youtube.com becomes ytscribe.io — and the transcript is already there when the page loads.

The trick

Every YouTube URL has the same shape: youtube.com, then a path, then a video ID. The path and the ID are the only parts that change between videos. The domain is always youtube.com.

ytscribe is built around this fact. The site uses the exact same path scheme as YouTube — /watch?v=ID, /shorts/ID, /embed/ID, /v/ID, even bare /ID. So whatever URL you have for a YouTube video, you can drop the .com for .io with one keystroke and land on the transcript.

Three ways to do the swap

There's no single right way — different keyboards and browsers favour different motions. Pick whichever fits your muscle memory:

Type it. Click into the URL bar (Cmd-L on Mac, Ctrl-L on Windows/Linux), select youtube, type ytscribe, press Enter. About one second once you're used to it.
Bookmarklet. Drag the button on the homepage to your bookmarks bar. From any YouTube video page, one click on the bookmark opens that video's transcript in a new tab. Cmd-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows/Linux) to open in a background tab.
Paste form. If you'd rather not touch the URL bar at all, the homepage has a paste form. Drop any YouTube link in and it extracts the video ID and routes you to the transcript.

Why this beats YouTube's transcript panel

YouTube's native transcript panel was built for accessibility — searching within a video, jumping to a quoted moment — not for reading or copying. There's no copy button. The lines are timestamped one-per-line, which makes the panel scrollable but the content unreadable as prose. Drag-select misses lines on Safari and breaks paragraphs on Chrome.

ytscribe defaults to a paragraph view that reads like an article. The timestamped view is one click away if you need it. Copy in plain text or Markdown with one click. The full transcript is in your clipboard before YouTube's panel has finished loading.

What about Shorts and embedded videos?

All five YouTube URL patterns work — including embedded players and the legacy /v/ form. youtube.com/shorts/ABC123 becomes ytscribe.io/shorts/ABC123. youtu.be/ABC123 becomes ytscribe.io/ABC123. The transcript surface is identical regardless of which entry path you used; only the original URL pattern changes.

FAQ

Do I have to install anything?: No. The URL swap works in any browser without an extension or download. The bookmarklet is optional — it's faster but the URL trick alone is enough.
Does this work on mobile?: Yes. The URL swap works on Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on iOS and Android. The bookmarklet is harder on mobile because most mobile browsers hide the bookmarks bar; on those, copy the bookmarklet source from the homepage and add it as a regular bookmark, then tap it from the address bar suggestions.
Can I make my browser swap the domain automatically?: Yes — use a browser extension like Redirector or a userscript that rewrites youtube.com/watch to ytscribe.io/watch. That's a heavier setup than the bookmarklet but it works without any clicks at all.
What if the video doesn't have captions?: ytscribe shows a clear message — 'No captions yet' or 'Captions disabled by uploader' — and links back to the YouTube video so you can confirm. Music videos get a music-specific message because most labels disable captions on music uploads.