SBV to SRT Converter
YouTube lets you download captions as .sbv, a format almost nothing else understands. Convert it to SubRip (.srt) here in one step so the captions work in VLC, Plex, your editor or any other platform. Fully offline, batch-friendly, no upload.
Accepted: .srt, .vtt, .sbv · You can add several files at once.
Your files never leave your device.
How to use this tool
- Download the caption track from YouTube Studio in SBV format.
- Drop the .sbv file(s) on the box above.
- Save the resulting .srt files.
What is an SBV file?
SBV (sometimes called SubViewer) is the simple caption format YouTube uses for exports and uploads. Each cue is a single timing line in the form 0:00:01.000,0:00:03.500, followed by the text and a blank line. There are no cue numbers, no formatting tags and the hours field is a single digit. It is easy to read but poorly supported outside YouTube.
Why convert SBV to SRT?
You typically end up with an SBV file when you reuse captions you created or auto-generated on YouTube: to publish the same video on Vimeo or a course platform, to open it in a video editor for burned-in subtitles, to translate it with a CAT tool, or simply to watch the local copy in VLC. All of these expect SRT, the most widely supported subtitle format.
If you need WebVTT instead, convert to SRT first and then use the SRT to VTT converter, or drop the SRT output straight onto that page.
What the converter does
Timing is converted exactly: 0:00:01.000,0:00:03.500 becomes 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500. Cues are numbered from 1, multi-line text is preserved and the file is written as UTF-8. Lines that are not part of any cue — a stray title, for example — are skipped and reported as warnings rather than causing an error. Line endings are normalised so the result opens correctly on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I download the SBV file from YouTube?
- In YouTube Studio open Subtitles, choose the video and language, click the three-dot menu next to the track and pick Download → .sbv. Then drop it here.
- Can I convert SRT back to SBV for re-uploading?
- YouTube accepts SRT and VTT uploads directly, so you rarely need SBV. The underlying library supports writing SBV, but SRT is the better upload choice.
- Does the converter handle long videos?
- Yes. Files with thousands of cues convert in well under a second. The only limit is a 20 MB cap per file, far beyond any real caption track.
- Is my caption file uploaded anywhere?
- No. Everything happens on your device in the browser tab; the site has no server-side processing at all.