Convert VTT to SRT
Most editors and upload forms want SubRip, and plenty of software still will not read WebVTT.
- Free
- No upload, no signup
- Timings preserved
How to convert VTT to SRT
Choose your .vtt file
Press the box at the top of this page and pick your VTT file, or drop it on. It is read in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there is no account to make.
Check the SRT preview
The first cues are shown as they will be written in SRT, so you can see the timings and the text before you save anything.
Download the .srt file
Save the SRT file to your device. Your VTT file is left as it was, so you can convert it again to another format.
VTT is the web format, SRT is the everywhere-else format
WebVTT exists because browsers needed a caption format with positioning and styling. That makes it the right answer inside a web page and the wrong answer nearly everywhere else: a lot of desktop editors, broadcast tools and platform upload forms read SubRip and nothing else.
Going this direction the conversion is a simplification. The cue text and timings carry over exactly. What does not carry over is anything WebVTT-specific: cue positioning, alignment settings, and any styling attached to a cue are not expressible in SubRip and are dropped.
For the overwhelming majority of caption files, which are plain text at the bottom of the frame, nothing is lost at all.
What gets dropped, precisely
Cue settings such as line, position and align have no SubRip equivalent, so a caption you had deliberately placed at the top of the frame will come back sitting at the bottom with the rest.
Voice and class tags, the ones that mark who is speaking or attach a style, are removed as well. If the speaker labels matter, put them in the text itself before converting rather than relying on the markup.
VTT and SRT, side by side
The text and the timings carry over exactly. What cannot come with them is anything WebVTT can express and SubRip cannot: positioning, alignment and per-cue styling have nowhere to go, so they are dropped rather than approximated.
Both samples below hold the same two cues, so the difference you can see is the whole difference between the formats.
WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.500
This is the first line.
2
00:00:03.500 --> 00:00:06.000
And this is the second.
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
This is the first line.
2
00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:06,000
And this is the second.
VTT to SRT: questions
Does converting VTT to SRT lose anything?
Only WebVTT-specific features: cue positioning, alignment and any styling or voice tags. The text and the timings are unchanged, and a plain caption file loses nothing.
Why does my editor not accept a .vtt file?
WebVTT was designed for browsers, and a lot of desktop and broadcast software never adopted it. SubRip is the older, simpler format that almost everything reads.
Will my cue positioning be kept?
No. Positioning, alignment and line settings are WebVTT features with no SubRip equivalent, so they are dropped rather than approximated. The text and the timings carry over exactly.
Why do some tools refuse my .vtt file?
Because WebVTT was designed for the HTML5 track element and a lot of software predates it. Desktop editors, broadcast tools and several platform upload forms read SubRip and nothing else, which is usually why people arrive here.
Does the WEBVTT header cause a problem in SRT?
It is removed. SubRip has no header line, so the first thing in the file is cue number one, and a leftover WEBVTT line would make most parsers fail on the first block.
Other caption conversions
Everything else you can do here.
Convert the video too
Convert VTT to SRT now
Free, in your browser. The file is converted on your device and is not uploaded.