Copy YouTube Transcript

A Chrome (Manifest V3) browser extension that copies YouTube video captions/transcripts to the clipboard from the watch page — optionally with timestamps, as plain text or Markdown.

Licensed under the MIT License.

Screenshots

YouTube watch page — the extension adds Copy transcript next to Share, Save, and other actions.

Extension popup — choose Plain text or Markdown, and toggle Include timestamps.

Features

• “Copy transcript” button in the action bar below the video (next to Share, Save, etc.) when a transcript is available
• No need to open YouTube’s transcript panel separately; captions are loaded in the background and copied on click
• Settings in the extension popup:
  • Output: Plain text or Markdown (bullet lists with -)
  • Timestamps: optional ([mm:ss] or [hh:mm:ss] for long videos)
• Settings are stored with chrome.storage.sync (synced across devices when signed into Chrome)
• If no captions/transcript exists, the button shows a disabled state (“No transcript”)

Requirements

• A Chromium-based browser with Manifest V3 support (e.g. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave)
• Used on youtube.com only (the extension is active there)

Install from source (developer mode)

1. Clone the repository or download and unpack the ZIP.
2. Open Manage extensions in your browser:
   • Chrome: chrome://extensions
   • Edge: edge://extensions
3. Enable Developer mode.
4. Click Load unpacked and select the folder that contains manifest.json (project root).

After installation, on a YouTube watch page (youtube.com/watch?v=…), the button appears once the page has loaded.

Usage

1. Open a video that has captions (auto-generated or manual).
2. Click Copy transcript — the text is copied to the clipboard.
3. Adjust format and timestamps in the extension popup (click the extension icon) if needed.

Permissions

Permission	Purpose
storage	Save popup settings (format, timestamps).
clipboardWrite	Write the transcript to the clipboard (via the background service worker).
*://*.youtube.com/* (host)	Scripts and network access only on YouTube domains for captions and the InnerTube API.

No data is sent to third-party servers operated by this extension; requests run in the YouTube context (cookies/session as in the browser).

Technical overview

• manifest.json — Manifest V3, content script, service worker, popup
• content.js — UI button, player/caption metadata, fetching captions (e.g. timedtext / json3), formatting
• content.css — Button styling
• background.js — Service worker for navigator.clipboard.writeText
• popup.html / popup.js — Settings

No build step: plain HTML/CSS/JS, load directly.

Contributing & issues

Issues and pull requests are welcome. For bugs, please include when possible:

• Browser and version
• Link or video ID
• Whether captions are visible in the YouTube UI
• Expected vs. actual behavior

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

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YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.