But it’s not available for everyone just yet
It definitely feels like the average length of a YouTube video has ballooned over the last few years. Forget 10-minute clips — most of the videos in my subscription feed routinely push well over half an hour these days, with some video essays and podcast uploads running as long as four hours. With that total playtime, finding your favorite quotes or sections can be an absolute headache. Transcriptions make it a whole lot easier to search out specific parts of a video, and now, it seems they’re headed to mobile.
Up until now, you’ve had to stick to YouTube’s desktop site to see a complete transcription of your chosen upload. With this new feature, you don’t need to be sitting in front of a computer to scroll through a script. Once it’s live, you can click on the “Show Transcript” button found below a video’s expanded description, sandwiched between any provided chapters and other suggested uploads from the channel.
These transcript options appear pretty similar to what’s been available on desktop for a while now, but transposed to a mobile-friendly UI. You can scroll through a full script on your phone, either to read along with a video or to jump directly to a timecode. Unfortunately, without the ability to directly search through lines, it might be a little less useful than the desktop version. Since the previous method for loading mobile transcriptions involved Chrome, it seems like a fair tradeoff for easy access.
Unfortunately, it seems like transcripts on Android are coming via a server-side update. I could not access it on my devices, even after downloading the latest beta APK from APK Mirror. Still, if you’re feeling lucky, check out some of your favorite videos to see if the option is there.
Thanks: Moshe
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