Snappixify
Watching YouTube videos offline is already a common practice, but when subtitles are involved, the task becomes less straightforward. The practical purpose of having subtitles in a video can be different: learning a new language, researching lectures, or just a preference to watch videos with captions for accessibility, but saving both the video and its subtitles can be tricky. YouTube itself doesn’t offer a simple way to download subtitles alongside videos, and online tools often have limitations. Desktop applications, or more specifically, YouTube video downloaders, make this process much smoother.
One such tool is Snappixify, available for Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu. It allows users not only to save videos but to download subtitles in multiple languages, either embedded in the video or as separate files.
In this article, we’ll show you a simple and quick way to download YouTube videos along with subtitles in different languages
Everything You Should Know About YouTube Subtitles
Before downloading, it helps to know what types of subtitles exist on YouTube. YouTube subtitles, also called closed captions (CC), transcribe spoken audio into text synced with videos to boost accessibility and reach. They come in automatic AI-generated, manual uploads, and translated versions across many languages.
Auto-generated captions, which are created automatically by YouTube’s algorithms, are usually available in the video’s original language and may contain errors, especially with names, technical terms, or accents. Such subtitles work in over 100 languages but have 80-85% accuracy on average for clear English audio, dropping with accents or noise.
Other videos include creator-uploaded subtitles, which are manually created and tend to be more accurate. Many creators provide subtitles in multiple languages, either uploaded themselves or auto-translated by YouTube.
Creators add subtitles via YouTube Studio: they upload .srt/.sbv files, use auto-sync, or type manually during upload or post-upload. Existing videos get edited auto-captions or new tracks. Viewers toggle CC via the player icon and customize font, size, color, and background in settings.
How to Save YouTube Subtitles: Daunting Manual Method
While YouTube allows users to view and copy transcripts, this method is slow and impractical for longer videos. Some online tools claim to download subtitles directly, but they often fail when the video has multiple languages, playlists, or private access restrictions.
Additionally, they usually don’t provide the option to embed subtitles directly into the video file.
However, desktop software like Snappixify can download both videos with embedded subtitles along with .srt files consisting of only subtitles.
