VTT to SRT: Convert WebVTT Captions and Check the Timing

SRT and WebVTT side by side

First line

VTT files start with WEBVTT, optionally followed by a title and header lines. SRT has no header at all.

Cue numbers

SRT numbers every subtitle from 1. A VTT cue may have a name, a number or nothing.

Timestamps

SRT writes 00:01:02,500 with a comma and always includes hours. VTT uses a dot and can drop the hours, as in 01:02.500.

Placement

VTT cues can carry settings such as line, position, align and size. SRT has no standard way to place a line, though some players honour codes like {\an8}.

Styling

VTT has STYLE blocks, classes and voice tags for speakers. SRT has a few HTML-like tags such as <i> and <b> that some players respect.

Comments

VTT allows NOTE blocks. SRT has nowhere to put a comment.

So the conversion is mostly deletion: anything SRT can't express is dropped, and the timestamps are rewritten. SRT versus VTT compares the formats more broadly.

Do you need the video to convert?

With this editor, yes. It is built to check subtitles against the picture, so the import and export buttons only appear after a video is loaded; there is no text-only mode. If you have the video, that is an advantage, because you can confirm the captions still line up before you hand the SRT to an editing app or a platform.

If you don't have the video, the conversion itself doesn't depend on it. Imported times aren't trimmed to the length of the video that is open, so any clip in a supported format will let you import and export, but you lose the timing check that makes this route worth taking. For a quick blind conversion, FFmpeg does it in one command (ffmpeg -i captions.vtt captions.srt). A short file can also be converted by hand in a text editor: delete the header, number the cues, add 00: hours to any short timestamps and replace the dots in the timing lines with commas.

Converting VTT to SRT in the editor

1. Open the editor, turn off "Write the subtitles automatically with AI", and choose the video.
2. Click Import SRT / VTT and pick the .vtt file. If the editor asks to replace existing lines, confirm.
3. Check the notice for skipped blocks, then play a few spots across the video, including the end, to make sure the captions are in sync.
4. Fix anything the conversion exposed, such as missing speaker names or doubled lines.
5. Click Export SRT. The download is named after the video, with an .srt extension.

Exactly what changes on the way through

• The WEBVTT line and any header lines below it, such as Kind or Language, are dropped.
• NOTE, STYLE and REGION blocks are dropped.
• Cue identifiers are discarded and the SRT is numbered from 1 in time order.
• Timestamps become hh:mm:ss,mmm: dots turn into commas, short mm:ss.mmm times gain zero hours, and a fraction like .5 is written as ,500.
• Cue settings after the end time disappear.
• Inline tags are removed, including <i> and <b>, which SRT could otherwise have kept, and voice tags lose the speaker name along with the tag.
• Character references such as &amp; become the plain characters.
• Cues with no text, or that end at or before their start, are left out.
• The SRT is saved as UTF-8 with a byte order mark and Windows line breaks.

Going the other way is Export VTT, which writes a fresh WEBVTT header and escapes ampersands and angle brackets in the text; converting SRT to VTT covers that direction in detail.

One cue, before and after

Checks worth doing after converting

Caption files exported from streaming platforms and automatic captioning often contain roll-up cues, where each line repeats in the next cue. They convert faithfully, duplicates and all, so look for overlap warnings in the list and delete or merge the repeats; editing YouTube's automatic captions deals with that kind of file. Check that dialogue between two people still makes sense without the voice names. And if the SRT is going into an editing app that places every line at the bottom, glance at captions the VTT had lifted to the top, because they will now sit over whatever occupies the lower part of the frame. For a full pass over the converted file, checking an SRT for errors covers each warning, and the SRT editor page walks through the fixes.

If you need an SRT and have no subtitle file at all, the AI subtitle generator writes one straight from the speech, and video to text gives you a plain transcript instead.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser