Convert SubViewer (.sbv) to WebVTT
Takes the .sbv YouTube Studio exports and writes WebVTT, which is what an HTML5 track element reads. Use this when captions from a published video need to go onto a player you host yourself.
Drop a .sbv file here
or click to choose one. It is converted in this page and never uploaded.
What gets added
- The WEBVTT header, without which a browser discards the track and shows no captions at all, with no error.
- Cue numbers, used as WebVTT cue identifiers so the file lines up with an SRT of the same captions.
- Escaping for the ampersand and the angle brackets, which are markup in WebVTT. A caption containing either would otherwise lose text in the player.
Timing is unchanged: both formats separate milliseconds with a full stop, so only the hour padding differs.
Nothing is uploaded
The .sbv is read and the .vtt is written in this page, by the same code that builds exports in the editor. The file never reaches a server and no copy is kept. A subtitle file is a transcript, and a transcript is often the part of a project that cannot leave the building.
Frequently asked questions
Can I rename the .sbv to .vtt instead?
No. Without the WEBVTT header the browser rejects the track, and it does so silently: the video plays with no captions and nothing in the console.
No subtitle file yet?
Generate one from your audio or video with word-level timing, then export WebVTT directly, no conversion step, and every word individually timed rather than every line. Free for 15 minutes and 5 transcriptions a month.
Transcribe a file instead