SRT Subtitle Tools

An SRT file (with the .srt extension) is a SubRip subtitle file — the most common and widely supported subtitle format in the world. It is a plain text file that contains the subtitles for a video along with the exact times each line should appear and disappear on screen. Because it is just text, you can open and edit an SRT file in any text editor, which is part of why it became the standard.

Each subtitle in an SRT file is called a cue, and every cue has three parts: a sequence number, a start and end timestamp, and the subtitle text itself. A typical cue looks like this:

1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Hello, and welcome to the show.

The timestamps use the format hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds, and the arrow (-->) separates the start time from the end time. A blank line separates one cue from the next. That simple structure is all there is to it.

SRT files are central to subtitle translation and video localization. When a video is translated for a new market, the subtitles are typically delivered as an SRT file, and the translator works through it cue by cue. The challenge is that the file mixes the text you want to translate with timestamps and numbers you must leave untouched — which is exactly why the Extract text tool above is useful: it pulls out just the subtitle text so you can translate it cleanly, then you reassemble the file.

Subtitle translation also has to respect the timing and reading speed of the original. Translated lines often need to be shorter or rephrased so they still fit on screen for the same duration — a constraint that makes subtitle translation a specialized skill rather than a straight text translation.

SRT's main modern relative is WebVTT (.vtt), the subtitle format used by HTML5 video on the web. The two are very similar — VTT files use almost the same cue structure — but there are small differences: VTT files begin with a WEBVTT header, use a dot before the milliseconds (00:00:01.000) instead of a comma, and support extra styling and positioning features that SRT does not.

Because they are so close, converting between SRT and VTT is straightforward, and the Convert to VTT tool above does it instantly. If you are adding subtitles to a web video, you will usually need VTT; if you are uploading to most video platforms or media players, SRT is the safe default.

Paste your subtitle content into the box above, or upload an .srt file directly — it is read in your browser and never sent anywhere. Then pick what you want to do: Extract text to get the translatable lines on their own, Convert to VTT to produce a WebVTT file, or Shift timing to move every subtitle earlier or later (handy when subtitles are consistently out of sync with the video). Copy the result or download it as a new file.