How to convert VTT to TXT
- Open your VTT files. Tap Open .vtt files and pick one or more, or drop them onto the converter on a computer. To convert captions you copied, open Paste VTT text instead.
- Check the options. Speaker names, one paragraph per speaker turn and removing sound tags such as [Music] are on by default. Tick Remove filler words to drop um and uh.
- Download the text. Save each transcript as a .txt with the same name as its .vtt file, copy it, or use Download all to get every file in one .txt.
What a VTT file looks like
This is the start of a Zoom meeting transcript as it arrives in a .vtt file:
WEBVTT
1
00:00:02.150 --> 00:00:05.320
Jane Doe: Thanks for joining, everyone.
2
00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:08.900
Jane Doe: Let's start with the launch plan.
3
00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:11.070
John Smith: Sounds good. I have the numbers.And this is the same transcript after conversion:
Jane Doe: Thanks for joining, everyone. Let's start with the launch plan.
John Smith: Sounds good. I have the numbers.Removed: the WEBVTT header and any lines under it, NOTE, STYLE and REGION blocks, cue numbers and identifiers, timing lines with their position settings, formatting tags such as <i> and <c>, word-by-word times inside YouTube auto-captions, and the repeated lines that rolling captions leave behind.
Kept: every spoken word in its original order, punctuation, accented letters and non-Latin scripts, and speaker names, with a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes.
Where VTT files come from
- Zoom: cloud recordings with Audio transcript turned on get a .vtt transcript next to the video and audio files on the Recordings page of the Zoom web portal.
- Microsoft Teams: after a transcribed meeting, open the meeting's Recap tab, select Transcript, open the Download menu and choose .vtt. Organizers and co-organizers can download it by default.
- YouTube Studio: for videos on your own channel, open Subtitles, pick the video, open the options menu next to a language and choose Download, then .vtt. Command-line tools such as yt-dlp also save YouTube captions as .vtt by default.
- Vimeo: caption files are uploaded as WebVTT or SRT, and viewers can download them from the video page when the owner allows downloads.
- Whisper apps: offline transcription apps such as Buzz and MacWhisper export .vtt and .srt files. See how to transcribe audio offline for free with Whisper.
Loom and many video editors export captions as .srt rather than .vtt. You can open those here too: the converter notes that the file isn't WebVTT and converts it anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What is a VTT file?
A VTT file is a WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks) caption file, the W3C standard format browsers use to show captions on HTML5 video. It is plain text: a WEBVTT header, then one cue per caption, each with a timing line such as 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000 followed by the words. Meeting tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams also use it to save transcripts.
How do I convert a Zoom VTT transcript to text?
Sign in to the Zoom web portal, go to Recordings, open the cloud recording and download the Audio transcript file, which ends in .vtt. Open it with the converter above and choose Download to save a .txt with the same name. Each speaker's consecutive lines become one paragraph that starts with their name. The transcript only exists if Audio transcript was turned on in your cloud recording settings before the meeting was recorded.
Can I convert several VTT files at once?
Yes. Select or drop as many .vtt files as you like. Each one gets its own row with a word count and its own Download button, and Download all saves a single .txt that holds every transcript, each under a === filename.vtt === header. Changing an option re-converts every file in the list.
Will speaker names be kept?
Yes, when the file has them. Zoom writes names as Name: before the words, and Teams uses <v Name> voice tags; both become Name: at the start of each speaker turn. Untick Keep speaker names for the spoken words only. YouTube captions carry no speaker names.
Is my file uploaded?
No. Your browser reads and converts the files on your device, and nothing is sent to our servers. After the page has loaded, the converter keeps working offline. We count anonymous usage, such as how many files were converted, but never file names or their text.
How do I open a VTT file in Word?
In Word, choose File > Open, set the file type to All Files and pick the .vtt file. Word opens it as plain text with every timing line and cue number still in it. For a readable document, convert it to .txt here first, then open the .txt in Word and save it as .docx. If the transcript came from Teams, you can also download it from the meeting recap as a .docx directly.
What is the difference between VTT and SRT?
Both are plain-text caption formats with a timing line for each caption. A VTT file starts with WEBVTT, writes milliseconds after a dot (00:00:01.000), makes cue numbers optional and can carry styling, positions and speaker voice tags. An SRT file numbers every caption and writes milliseconds after a comma (00:00:01,000). This converter reads .srt files too.