Convert TXT to SBV

Free, instant, and entirely in your browser — your subtitle file is never uploaded.

100% private — your subtitles never leave your device
Drop your TXT file here, or click to browse

About TXT files

Plain text is the subtitle with the subtitle part removed: the spoken lines, in order, with no timing at all.

About SBV files

SBV is YouTube's own caption format, and about as simple as SRT with one line less: no sequence number, and the two timestamps separated by a comma rather than an arrow.

Converting TXT to SBV, specifically

You have the words your video says and you want them on YouTube. This produces a valid SBV with one cue per line in sequence, which is enough for the file to upload and open in YouTube Studio — but the timing is arithmetic, not transcription, so it will not match the speech. There is a better route if it is available to you: upload the plain transcript to YouTube directly and let its aligner time it against the audio. Use this when you need an SBV file itself, and expect to adjust it.

Why convert to SBV

You want SBV because you are uploading to YouTube and want the format its own editor writes. It is worth knowing this is rarely necessary — YouTube accepts SRT quite happily — so choose SBV when a workflow or a tool specifically asks for it, not as a default.

What converting TXT to SBV actually does

Plain text has no timing, so this conversion has to invent it. Each line becomes a cue of a fixed length, laid end to end from the start of the file. The words will be right and the timing will not — it is a scaffold, not a finished subtitle. The honest workflow is to convert here, then open the result in a sync tool and line it up against the video.

How to convert TXT to SBV

  1. Drop your TXT file onto the box above, or paste the text straight in.
  2. The file is read on your device — it is never uploaded anywhere.
  3. Press convert. You get a SBV file back immediately.
  4. Anything the conversion could not carry over is listed on screen, so you know before you use the file.

Questions

Is my TXT file uploaded to a server?

No. The conversion runs in your browser using JavaScript — your TXT file is read from disk, converted in memory and handed back as a download. Nothing is transmitted, so there is nothing for us to store or delete. You can disconnect from the internet after this page loads and the conversion still works.

Does converting TXT to SBV lose anything?

You have the words your video says and you want them on YouTube. This produces a valid SBV with one cue per line in sequence, which is enough for the file to upload and open in YouTube Studio — but the timing is arithmetic, not transcription, so it will not match the speech. There is a better route if it is available to you: upload the plain transcript to YouTube directly and let its aligner time it against the audio. Use this when you need an SBV file itself, and expect to adjust it.

What if my file is not really TXT?

The page checks before it converts. Subtitle formats are identified by what is inside the file rather than by the extension — which matters, because .sub alone is used by three unrelated formats. If you hand this page something that is not TXT, it says so and points you at the all-format converter instead of producing a broken file.

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