How to Get a Transcript of a JW.org Video
Turn a video from JW.org into a timestamped transcript you can read, search and download as TXT, SRT or VTT, in the language of the link you share. Here is which link to paste and what happens next.
JW.org, the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses, publishes thousands of videos in hundreds of languages: talks, Bible accounts, interviews and the monthly broadcasts. Most of them come with subtitles, and you can watch them right on the site. What the site does not give you is the text on its own, as a file you can read at your own pace, search, quote from or print.
SubGrab does that. Paste a JW.org video link and you get a timestamped transcript you can download as TXT, SRT or VTT.
Which link to paste
Use the link JW.org gives you when you share a video. On the video's page, choose Share and copy the link. It looks like this:
https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=share&wtlocale=E&lank=pub-...
The address of the video page itself works too. It is the page that share link opens, and its address ends with ?item=pub-...&appLanguage=E.
So does the address in your browser while you watch in JW.org's video library. It names the video after a #, like https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/....
The letter after wtlocale= or appLanguage= is the language. A link shared from the Spanish site carries S, the English one E, and the transcript you get is in that language.
What happens when you paste it
SubGrab asks JW.org for that video in that language, and reads the subtitles JW.org publishes with it. That is the same text you see under the player, kept with its timestamps, so it arrives in seconds. A transcript from subtitles uses one credit, whatever the length of the video.
If a video has no subtitles in that language, that credit is returned and you are offered an AI transcription instead. SubGrab takes the smallest copy of the video's audio and transcribes it, and that quote shows its price before anything is charged.
What you can do with the transcript
- Read a talk at your own pace, or print it
- Search for the moment a scripture or an idea comes up
- Quote it with the exact time it was said
- Load the SRT or VTT file into a video editor or player
What does not work
A link has to point to one video. A page that lists many videos, a category or a playlist has no single video to transcribe. Open the video you want and share that one.
New accounts start with free credits, so your first transcripts cost nothing.