Subtitle Options

Download, configure, and manage subtitles and closed captions

Subtitle Download

--write-subs · flag

Write subtitle file

--no-write-subs · flag · default: "true"

Do not write subtitle file

--write-auto-subs · flag

Write automatically generated subtitle file

Alias: --write-automatic-subs

--no-write-auto-subs · flag · default: "true"

Do not write auto-generated subtitles

Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs

Subtitle Listing

--list-subs · flag

List available subtitles of each video

Simulate unless --no-simulate is used

Example:

yt-dlp --list-subs URL

Subtitle Format

--sub-format · string

Subtitle format; accepts formats preference separated by ”/”

Example:

yt-dlp --sub-format srt URL
yt-dlp --sub-format "ass/srt/best" URL

Language Selection

--sub-langs · string

Languages of the subtitles to download (can be regex) or “all” separated by commas

You can prefix the language code with a ”-” to exclude it from the requested languages.

Use --list-subs for a list of available language tags

Example:

yt-dlp --sub-langs "en.*,ja" URL
# Downloads English (en.*) and Japanese subtitles

yt-dlp --sub-langs all,-live_chat URL
# Downloads all subtitles except live chat

yt-dlp --write-subs --sub-langs "en" URL
# Downloads only English subtitles