A panel opens beside the video with the full transcript and an AI summary. Search it, click a timestamp to jump, copy it or export TXT, SRT or Markdown. Free, no account, 100 videos a month.
Free. No account. Installs in one click.
What does the SozAI YouTube Transcript extension do?
SozAI YouTube Transcript is a free Chrome extension that puts a video's full transcript and a short AI summary in a panel beside the YouTube player, for up to 100 videos a month per device and with no account. It reads the video's own captions, so the transcript is usually ready in seconds; you can search it to find a moment and download it as TXT, SRT or Markdown.
It's for people who would rather read a lecture or an interview than sit through it. Nothing is sold inside the extension.
Its one real limit: no captions, no transcript. For a video without captions, Save to SozAI opens it in the web app, which transcribes the audio using your account's minutes.
Open a video on youtube.com and the SozAI panel sits in the right-hand column. Press Transcribe and two tabs fill in: Summary, with a short description and the key takeaways, and Transcript, split into timestamped blocks. Type a word to keep only the blocks that contain it; click a timestamp and the video plays from there. Under the text are four buttons: Copy, TXT, SRT and MD.
Below them, Study this video makes flashcards or a quiz from it on sozai.app. Save to SozAI opens the video in the web app, where it lands in your own library with notes and a chat about it; that part needs a free account and uses its minutes.
Click the SozAI icon in the toolbar and paste a YouTube link; Shorts and youtu.be links work as well as ordinary ones. The transcript opens as a page on sozai.app. If that video has been transcribed on sozai.app before, the page opens straight away and doesn't count against your 100.
My transcripts, in the same popup, lists the videos you asked for, newest first, with a search by title. The list is kept in your browser only and holds up to 300 videos.
It doesn't listen to the audio. It reads the captions YouTube already has, the uploader's or the automatic ones, in the video's original language when they exist. A video with no captions at all gets a clear message instead of an invented transcript. It doesn't translate the transcript either. The SozAI app and web.sozai.app do both: they transcribe from the audio and can translate the result.
The panel docks to the right of the player with two tabs, Summary and Transcript. The transcript is broken into timestamped blocks, so you read it the way the video is structured rather than as one wall of text.
The Summary tab gives a short description of what the video covers and a bulleted set of takeaways, with the word count and runtime underneath so you know what you are committing to before you read.
Type a word and the panel filters to the blocks that contain it, with every match highlighted. Each block keeps its timestamp, so the search result is also a way back into the video.
Four buttons sit under the transcript. Copy puts it on the clipboard, TXT gives the text with a timestamp on each block, SRT gives a subtitle file with the timings intact, and MD gives Markdown, summary included, ready to paste into notes.
Install it, open a video, press Transcribe. There is no signup, no key to paste and nothing to configure. The free allowance is a hundred videos a month per device.
Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
Open any YouTube video.
Press Transcribe in the SozAI panel beside the player.
Read the summary, search the transcript, then copy or export it.
Two tabs beside the player: a written summary with key takeaways, and the full timestamped transcript.
Filter the transcript to the blocks containing a word, with matches highlighted and timestamps preserved.
Every block carries the position it came from, so a line of text is also a way back to that moment.
TXT with a timestamp on each block for notes, SubRip subtitles with the timings intact, Markdown with the summary for documents.
No account, no API key, nothing to configure. A device identifier is all it uses.
The free allowance is per device and resets monthly. Nothing is charged and no card is asked for.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Browser | Chrome 116 or newer |
| Account | None. An anonymous install ID, made in your browser, counts the allowance |
| Free allowance | 100 new transcripts a month per device, reset on the 1st of each month; at most 10 an hour from one internet connection |
| Links already on sozai.app | A pasted link to a video transcribed there before opens without using the allowance |
| Price | Free. There is nothing to buy inside the extension |
| Permission | Why the extension needs it |
|---|---|
| www.youtube.com | To put the panel next to the player and see which video you're on |
| sozai.app | Our server, the only one it talks to: it gets the video's address and returns the transcript |
| Storage | Your install ID and allowance counter, plus My transcripts |
| Notifications | To tell you a transcript from a pasted link is ready while Chrome is in the background |
| Alarms | To check on a transcript in progress, only while one is running |
| Scripting | To add the panel to YouTube tabs that were already open when you installed or updated it |
The extension sends sozai.app the address of the video you asked for and the anonymous install ID. Nothing that names you goes with them, and the extension contains no analytics code. Every transcript it makes is also published as a public page on sozai.app, the same page the popup opens, so treat a transcript of a public video as public. My transcripts stays in your browser and is never sent. Every company that processes data for SozAI is on our sub-processors page.
They transcribe audio rather than captions, so they count minutes instead of videos. Both start with 30 free minutes and no signup; sign in and they use your SozAI account's minutes, Premium included. Premium is sold only inside the SozAI apps, through the App Store or Google Play.
| Extension | What it does |
|---|---|
| Voice to Text for WhatsApp | Adds a Transcribe button under voice messages in WhatsApp Web; the text appears in the chat, with a one-line summary if you allowed AI processing |
| Transcribe Audio to Text | Takes an audio or video file, or a recording from your microphone, and returns a transcript with speakers and timestamps, plus a summary, in its own tab |
The Chrome Web Store serves version 1.7.0, published on 20 October 2026. It added the paste-a-link popup and My transcripts, and the panel now appears on videos opened from YouTube's home page or search without a reload. Every release is on the changelog.
Answers
No. There’s no signup and no API key to paste. The extension makes an anonymous install ID in your browser so it can count the free monthly allowance, and that is all it identifies you by. You need a free SozAI account only if you press Save to SozAI to keep a video in the web app.
A hundred new transcripts a month per device, counted per calendar month and reset on the 1st. There is also a cap of 10 an hour from one internet connection. A link you paste into the popup for a video already transcribed on sozai.app opens without using the allowance. There’s no card and nothing to buy inside the extension.
Access to www.youtube.com, to show the panel beside the player, and to sozai.app, the one server it talks to. Storage keeps the install ID and the counter, plus My transcripts. Notifications tell you when a transcript from a pasted link is ready. Alarms check on a transcript in progress, and scripting adds the panel to YouTube tabs that were open before you installed it.
It relies on the captions a video carries, the uploader’s or YouTube’s automatic ones. Where a video has none in any language, there is nothing to read, and the panel says so rather than invent a transcript. Press Save to SozAI and the web app can transcribe that video from its audio, using your account’s minutes.
The panel gives you the transcript in the language of the video’s captions, which is the original language when YouTube has captions in it. The extension doesn’t translate. For a translation, save the video to the SozAI web app or open it in the app, where a finished transcript can be translated into another language.
The extension sends sozai.app only the address of the video and your anonymous install ID; it has no reason to touch other sites and doesn’t. But each transcript it makes is published as a public page on sozai.app, so don’t treat a transcript of a public video as private. My transcripts, the list of what you asked for, stays in your browser.
It’s built and tested for Chrome 116 or newer. Browsers built on Chromium that install from the Chrome Web Store, such as Edge, Brave and Arc, can run it too. It isn’t available for Firefox or Safari. On a phone, use the SozAI app or paste the link into the YouTube transcript tool on sozai.app.
TXT puts each transcript block on its own line with its timestamp, which suits notes. SRT is a SubRip subtitle file: numbered cues with start and end times, which a video player or editor expects. Markdown puts the title and the summary with its key takeaways above the transcript, which pastes cleanly into a notes app.
Already using it? A short review on the Chrome Web Store helps other people find the extension, and tells us what to build next.
Free, no account. Installs in one click from the Chrome Web Store.
Free. No account. Installs in one click.
