What are subtitle files?

Subtitle files are text documents that pair dialogue or narration with timing information so a video player can display each line at the correct moment. The two most common formats are SRT (SubRip Text) and WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks). Both formats encode each subtitle as a numbered cue containing a start time, an end time, and one or more lines of text — along with optional inline formatting tags like <b>, <i>, or color codes.

When you need the raw dialogue without timing metadata — for creating a transcript, feeding text into a translation tool, training a language model, or simply reading through a script — subtitle files become cumbersome. Every cue includes timestamps, sequence numbers, and HTML-like tags that clutter the actual content.

Tool description

This tool strips all timing data, sequence numbers, and inline formatting tags from SRT and WebVTT subtitle files, leaving only the clean dialogue text. Upload a subtitle file or paste its contents directly, and the tool outputs a plain-text transcript you can copy or download.

Examples

Input (SRT):

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
Hello, <b>world</b>!

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,000
This is a subtitle file.

Output:

Hello, world!
This is a subtitle file.

Features

  • SRT and VTT support: Parses both SubRip (.srt) and WebVTT (.vtt) formats correctly
  • Inline tag removal: Strips all HTML-style formatting tags (<b>, <i>, <c.color>, timestamp tags) from cue text
  • Duplicate line removal: Optional checkbox to deduplicate repeated lines — useful for subtitles that repeat lines across overlapping cues
  • File upload or paste: Upload a subtitle file directly or paste the raw subtitle text into the editor
  • Download as .txt: Save the cleaned transcript as a plain text file with one click

Supported formats

  • SRT (.srt) — SubRip Text, the most common subtitle format
  • WebVTT (.vtt) — Web Video Text Tracks, the standard for HTML5 video

Tips

  • Enable Remove duplicate lines when converting subtitles from videos where the same line appears in multiple consecutive cues (common in karaoke or SDH subtitles).
  • The output preserves one line per subtitle cue. If you need the transcript as a single paragraph, paste the output into any text editor and use find-and-replace to swap newlines for spaces.