YouTube Video Translator

Why it helps

A large part of YouTube's audience watches in languages other than the one you record in, and auto-translated captions only go so far — many people won't read subtitles for a 20-minute video. A dubbed version reaches viewers who would otherwise click away.

mydubly works from your original file, not a link. That keeps the picture on your computer and means you only translate videos you own.

Step by step

1. Download your original export (or the file from YouTube Studio → Content → Download) to your computer.
2. Drop the MP4 into the translator, choose the target language and one of 8 voices, and switch Full translation output on.
3. When it finishes, download the translated audio, the translated MP4 and the SRT.
4. In YouTube Studio, add the SRT under Subtitles → Add language. If your channel has multi-language audio, upload the translated audio as an extra audio track; otherwise publish the translated MP4 as a separate video for that language's audience.

Tips

• Start with your evergreen videos — tutorials and explainers keep getting views, so a translation pays off longer than for news-style content.
• Translate the title and description too; YouTube lets you add translated metadata per language.
• Check the translated transcript for your channel's catchphrases and product names before publishing.

Example

Cost: 700 credits (70¢).

Limitations to know

• No link import: you need the video file itself.
• The translated voice is a stock AI voice, not a clone of yours, and there is no lip-sync.
• Background music and sound effects are kept by AI vocal separation, which isn't perfect: faint traces of the original voice can remain in dense mixes, and sung lyrics are removed with the speech.

Choose how the translated version will reach viewers

The dub you download can reach a new audience in three different ways, and the choice changes which files you need and how much review the translation deserves. Decide this before you spend credits, because a subtitle-only plan doesn't need dub mode at all.

Extra audio track on the original video

Upload the translated M4A as an additional language track if your channel has that option. Views, comments and watch history stay on one video, and viewers switch language in the player.

Separate video per language

Publish the translated MP4 with its own translated title, description and thumbnail. It can be found by searches in that language, but it starts from zero views and needs its own promotion.

Subtitles only

Run transcript mode with a target language and upload the SRT. At 1 credit per minute it is the cheapest route, and it suits viewers who are comfortable reading along.

If you are unsure, start with subtitles for a whole playlist and dub only the two or three videos that already pull in viewers from that region. The multi-language audio article explains how extra audio tracks behave for viewers, and the YouTube translation guide walks through the upload side.

Start from the master export, not a re-download

The file you rendered from your editor is the cleanest source you have. A copy downloaded back from YouTube has been re-compressed, and every generation of compression makes speech a little less crisp for the recognizer. If you plan to translate regularly, keep a folder of masters next to each project.

Two things in the master deserve attention before upload. First, music: the original speech is separated out and the music bed under your talking stays in the translated MP4, lowered while the new voice speaks. A loud bed makes that separation harder, so faint traces of your voice can remain and the music can sound slightly thinner, and songs with lyrics lose their vocals. If you have your edit project and want full control, dub a dialogue-only export instead and mix the translated voice with your clean music stem in your editor; keeping background music covers that optional step. Second, length: anything over two hours has to be split into parts and the translated parts joined again afterwards.

Sponsor reads are the other pre-flight decision. A read recorded for one market often makes no sense, or breaks the sponsor agreement, in another. Some creators cut the read from the file before translating and record a short segment for the new audience instead; the article on sponsored segments lists the options.

Reviewing a language you don't speak

Most creators can't proofread their own Japanese or Turkish version, so build the review around what you can check. The result screen puts your original words next to the translation, line by line. Scan the original column first: if a product name or catchphrase was misheard there, the translation will be wrong too, and that is an error you can spot without knowing the target language.

Then play the dub preview at 0.75× through the sections that carry the point of the video: the hook, the key instruction, the call to action. Listen for names read oddly, numbers that changed, or lines that sound rushed because the translation ran longer than your sentence. Finally, if a viewer or friend speaks the language, send them the SRT and ask them to flag anything awkward; a text file is quicker to review than a video.

Costing a channel, video by video

Dubbing is billed at 50 credits per minute with a two-minute minimum per file; a subtitle-only run costs 1 credit per minute with a minimum of 5 credits.

For older uploads, translating a back catalogue suggests which videos to pick first.

A pre-publish pass for each language

• Title, description and thumbnail wording are written for the new language; the translation itself only covers speech.
• The SRT you attach comes from the same dub run, so captions match what the voice says.
• Pinned comments and description links point to pages a viewer of that language can use.
• The translated version says somewhere that the voice is AI-generated, in whatever way suits your channel.
• The original video links to the translated one, or the extra audio track is tagged with the right language.

For caption-only work, the YouTube subtitles page goes deeper.

Using the tool on this page

• The spoken language is detected automatically; you select the output language — the spoken language itself for an untranslated transcript, or another language for a translation. Files can be up to 2 hours long.
• Only the audio is sent for processing — the video stays on your device — and audio and text are deleted within 30 minutes of delivery (how files are protected).
• You can download a translated video that keeps your music and effects, the translated audio as M4A, a transcript and subtitles (SRT and VTT). Every output, step and limit is explained on the video translator page.