How to convert VTT to SRT
Drop the .vtt file and download it as SRT. The header, comments and style blocks are removed, each cue gets a number, and the period in every timestamp becomes a comma: 00:00:20.000 becomes 00:00:20,000.
What is lost when you convert WebVTT to SRT
- Cue settings such as alignment, position, line and size have no SRT equivalent and are dropped.
- STYLE blocks and CSS classes are removed, so custom colours and fonts do not carry over.
- Voice tags like <v Ali> are removed, leaving the spoken text.
- NOTE comments and REGION definitions are dropped.
- Basic italic, bold and underline tags are kept, because most SRT players support them.
Why you might need SRT instead of VTT
SRT is the most widely supported subtitle format. Media servers such as Plex and Kodi, smart TVs, video editors and many video platforms accept SRT, while some do not accept WebVTT. If you downloaded captions from a web video or a streaming manifest they are usually WebVTT, and converting them to SRT lets them work almost everywhere.
The timestamp difference is small — WebVTT uses a period before the milliseconds and allows the hours to be left out, SRT uses a comma and always writes hours — but strict parsers reject a mismatch, which is why a rename from .vtt to .srt does not work.
Encoding problems, handled
Most “broken” subtitle files are not broken: they are saved in an encoding other than UTF-8, so accented letters, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic or Asian characters turn into question marks or garbage in tools that assume UTF-8. This converter detects the file’s encoding (from a byte-order mark, a UTF-8 validity check, or statistical detection) and shows you what it chose. If the text looks wrong, choose a different encoding from the list and the file is read again. Whatever the input, the file you download is UTF-8, which every modern player understands.
How to use it
- Drop your .vtt file onto the box.
- Check the cue count and the detected encoding.
- Choose SRT as the download format.
- Download the converted file.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert VTT to SRT?
Drop the VTT file here and download it as SRT. The converter removes the WEBVTT header, numbers the cues and changes the timestamp separators.
Can I just rename the file from .vtt to .srt?
No. The two formats write timestamps differently and VTT has a header, so most players will not read a renamed file correctly.
What happens to positioning and styling?
They are dropped, because SRT cannot express them. The text, timings and basic italics, bold and underline are kept.
Why do accented or non-Latin letters look wrong?
Because the file is not UTF-8. Many subtitle files are saved in Windows-1252, Windows-1251, Shift-JIS, GBK and other encodings, and reading them as UTF-8 produces garbled text. This tool detects the encoding, shows what it chose, and lets you pick another from a list; the file you download is UTF-8.
Is my subtitle file uploaded?
No. The file is read and converted in your browser and is never sent to a server. The site records only an anonymous count of the format pair and a rough size bucket, never the subtitle text.