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How to convert subtitles to a plain text transcript on a Mac
By Himanshu Ranjan · Updated 8 November 2026
Select the subtitle file in Finder, open FileDial, and run Convert › Convert to plain text. You get a text file with just the words, no cue numbers and no timings. It works offline and in batches, and the original subtitle file stays as it is.
What you get
A subtitle file is mostly structure: cue numbers, start and end times, and short lines broken to fit the screen. A transcript needs only the words. FileDial's tool note says exactly that: just the words, no timings.
This is useful for quotes, blog posts, study notes, search, or feeding text into a document. Because the lines were broken for screen display, the result can still have short line breaks that you may want to reflow in your editor.
Convert with FileDial
- Select the .srt or .vtt file in Finder.
- Hold the right Option key to open the dial.
- Choose Convert › Convert to plain text and release.
- Open the new text file beside the original.
Getting subtitles in the first place
If you only have the video or audio, FileDial's Convert › Transcribe to subtitles… makes an SRT and a TXT on this Mac, so you may not need a second step at all. If you have an SRT from another source, use the plain text tool. If you want to read it in another language, Translate › Translate subtitles… translates on this Mac and keeps the timings, and you can then convert the result to text.
Cleaning up the transcript
Subtitle text often contains sound cues in brackets, repeated speaker dashes or line breaks mid-sentence. A find and replace in a text editor will clear these. Check names and numbers against the audio, particularly when the subtitles came from automatic speech recognition, which is often less accurate than human work, especially with homophones.
Keep the SRT
The text file loses timing, so you cannot rebuild subtitles from it. Keep the SRT or VTT. FileDial writes a new file and never replaces the source.
Where plain-text transcripts are useful
A transcript is searchable, quotable and easy to paste into a document. Journalists use them to find a quote in an interview, students to study a lecture, and creators to turn a video into a blog post or description. It also helps accessibility: some people prefer reading a transcript to watching a video, and a transcript can be read by a screen reader.
FileDial's conversion keeps only the words, which is what these uses need. The timing information stays in the original subtitle file if you need to jump back to a moment in the video.
Cleaning the text for reuse
Subtitle lines are short because they have to fit on screen, so a sentence is often split over two or three lines. In a text editor, replace single line breaks with spaces and keep blank lines between paragraphs. Remove sound descriptions such as music or laughter in brackets if you only want speech. If the file has speaker changes marked with dashes, decide whether to turn them into names.
Always check quotes against the audio before publishing them. Subtitles are a transcription or translation of dialogue made for reading speed, and they sometimes condense what was said. A subtitle is not always a verbatim record.
Mistakes and alternatives
A common mistake is losing the SRT after making the text file and then discovering you need the timing. Keep both. Another is expecting the text file to contain speaker names, which most subtitle files do not carry.
TextEdit can open an SRT as plain text and you can delete numbers and timing lines by hand, which is fine for a very short file but slow and error prone for a long one. Find and replace with patterns is possible in some editors, but a converter does the whole file reliably and offline in one step.
Using the transcript responsibly
A transcript of someone else's video or film is still their work, so quoting short passages with attribution is normal, while republishing a whole transcript may need permission. For your own material, publish the transcript next to the video, since it helps people who cannot play audio and gives search engines readable text. Label it clearly as a transcript, and fix errors before posting, particularly in names. If the subtitles came from automatic transcription, a read-through against the audio is the minimum before the text goes anywhere public.
If you work with a large batch of files, such as a season of episodes, keep the text files in a separate folder named for the series, and number them to match the episodes so that searching across them with Finder or a text editor stays simple. Searching all transcripts for a word is one of the quickest ways to find where something was said.
Local processing
Transcripts can be sensitive. FileDial runs every tool on your Mac and never uploads a file, and all tools work with Wi-Fi off.
Questions
Does the text file keep timestamps?
No. FileDial's Convert › Convert to plain text keeps only the words. Keep the SRT or VTT if you need timing later. Cue numbers and timing lines are removed, so the text is ready to paste into a document, though line breaks may need tidying.
Can I convert VTT to text as well?
Yes. The tool is listed for subtitle files in general, so select an SRT or VTT in Finder and run Convert › Convert to plain text. Keep the original file for timing, because the text version cannot be turned back into subtitles on its own.
How do I get a transcript from a video with no subtitles?
Use Convert › Transcribe to subtitles… in FileDial, which makes an SRT and a TXT on your Mac. Review it, because automatic transcription can contain errors. That route is faster than transcribing by hand, though automatic transcripts always need a read-through for errors.
Can I convert many subtitle files at once?
Yes. Select them all in Finder and run the tool once. Each file gets a plain text copy beside it. Each result lands beside its source, so a season of subtitle files becomes a matching set of text files in one go.