Extract Subtitles from Video (MKV, MP4, WebM)

How to extract subtitles from a video

1. Choose the video above. MKV, MP4, M4V, MOV and WebM files are read; the video doesn't need to play in this browser.
2. Wait a moment while the file is scanned. Each subtitle track appears as a line such as "Track 3: English — SDH (SRT, default)".
3. Tick the tracks you want. All text tracks start ticked; picture-based ones are shown but can't be ticked.
4. Under "Save as", pick SRT, WebVTT or ASS.
5. Press "Extract subtitles". One track downloads as a single file; several tracks arrive together in a ZIP.

Soft subtitles, burned-in subtitles and picture tracks

Only one kind of subtitle can be pulled out of a video as text, so it helps to know which kind you have:

Soft text track

stored inside the file as text (SubRip, ASS/SSA, WebVTT, or MP4's mov_text); you can switch it on and off in VLC or a TV player. This tool extracts these.

Picture-based track

stored as images of the text: PGS from Blu-ray rips and VobSub from DVDs. Listed here, but turning them into SRT needs OCR software such as Subtitle Edit, which this tool doesn't do.

Burned-in subtitles

painted into the picture itself, so they can't be switched off. There is no track to extract at all.

A quick test: if your player's subtitle menu lets you choose or turn off the subtitles, they are a track. If they are always visible, even on a player with subtitles disabled, they are burned in. The article on embedded and sidecar subtitles explains the difference in more detail.

Broadcast-style closed captions that ride inside the video stream (CEA-608/708 from some TV recordings) aren't separate tracks either, so they won't show up in the list.

Reading the track list

Each line tells you what the track is, taken from the file's own labels:

• Language: the code the file was tagged with. "Language not set" is common in home-made MKVs; open the result to check.
• Title: free text such as "SDH", "Forced" or "Commentary", if whoever made the file added one.
• Format: SRT, ASS, WebVTT or "MP4 text" (mov_text) for text tracks; picture tracks are marked "picture-based, needs OCR".
• Forced: a track meant to show only the lines a viewer needs anyway, such as signs or a scene in another language. If you want full dialogue, pick the other track in the same language.
• Default: the track a player switches on automatically.

The saved file is named after the video and those labels, for example "film.eng.SDH.srt" or "film.spa.forced.srt", so several tracks don't overwrite each other.

SRT, WebVTT or ASS?

SRT

plain text with timings; opens in nearly every player, editor and upload form. The usual choice.

WebVTT

the format web players and HTML5 video use; pick it for a website or an LMS.

ASS

keeps fonts, colours and positions when the track was ASS or SSA to begin with (it is copied as it is). Other tracks become a basic ASS file.

Anime and fan releases often carry styled ASS tracks with signs placed around the screen. Saving those as SRT keeps the words and timing but drops the styling. If you save as ASS now and need SRT later, the ASS to SRT converter does that and tells you which lines had special positioning.

What to do with the extracted file

• Fix timing or typos: open the SRT or VTT in the free subtitle editor together with the video. It imports SRT and VTT, not ASS.
• Make them permanent: burn the subtitles into the video for platforms that don't accept a separate file.
• Keep them before converting: the MKV to MP4 converter carries only the picture and sound, so extract the subtitle tracks first if you want to keep them.
• Put them into another file: adding subtitles to an MKV covers the opposite job.

When there is no track to extract

If the scan finds no subtitle tracks, or only burned-in text, the words can still be recovered from the speech. The subtitle generator transcribes the audio into an SRT or VTT in 100 languages for 1 credit per minute (minimum 5 credits per file), so a 40-minute episode costs 40 credits (4¢). Only the audio track is sent for processing; the video stays in your browser.

mydubly can't translate an existing subtitle file, including one extracted here. Translation works from the audio: the video translator or the subtitle generator transcribes the speech and produces subtitles in the language you choose.

Examples

Limits to know

• Text tracks only: SubRip, ASS/SSA, WebVTT and mov_text. PGS and VobSub are listed but not converted.
• Nothing is read from the picture: no OCR of burned-in text.
• In some browsers, very large files (over about 400 MB) can't be streamed into the reader; Chrome or Edge handle them.
• The whole file is scanned because subtitle lines are spread through it, so a large file takes a little longer, but the video is never decoded or re-encoded.