What Is an SRT File? Format, Example and How to Open One

What does SRT stand for?

SRT stands for SubRip Subtitle, sometimes expanded as SubRip Text. The name comes from SubRip, a free Windows program that pulled subtitles out of video into text files, and the extension kept its initials.

The SRT meaning differs elsewhere: Street and Racing Technology is a Dodge performance brand, and Secure Reliable Transport is a streaming protocol. This guide covers only the subtitle file, the thing people mean when they ask what is an SRT file.

SRT file format: what each subtitle block contains

Every block, called a cue, has four parts in a fixed order, and a missing part breaks the whole block:

• Sequence number: starts at 1 and goes up by one in playback order.
• Timecode line: HH:MM:SS,mmm --> HH:MM:SS,mmm, the start and end time to the millisecond, with spaces around the arrow.
• Subtitle text: one or two lines shown together.
• Blank line: closes the block; without it, two blocks merge into one.

Below are blocks 5-7 of our TranscriptYou export of the public video "Charlie bit my finger - again !" (5 November 2026). It has only YouTube's automatic captions, so the text is raw, unedited speech recognition:

5
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:51,360
hurts bit

6
00:00:47,239 --> 00:00:54,760
me and that really hurt Char it's still

7
00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:54,760
act hurting

The SRT format puts a comma before the milliseconds, where WebVTT uses a full stop. Hours are always written, even as 00. Save as UTF-8, or é and ü turn into stray symbols. Tags such as <i> or <font color> are allowed, but whether they render depends on the player.

What SRT files are used for

SRT files carry subtitles and closed captions as a separate file that viewers switch on or off; closed captions also describe sounds for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Unlike captions burned into an MP4, SRT subtitles can be fixed without exporting the video again.

Typical uses of SRT files are accessibility, watching with the sound off, and translation, with one .srt file per language. YouTube accepts SubRip uploads, and for a video already there you can download YouTube subtitles in any language it carries.

How to open an SRT file

Any text editor opens an SRT file because it is plain text; to see the subtitles on a video, load the file in a media player such as VLC media player.

Read or edit the text in Notepad or TextEdit

On Windows, Notepad or any text editor shows the blocks as they are. On a Mac, TextEdit opens SRT files as plain text: our export opened on macOS 15 with all 356 characters intact.

1. 01

   Open the file

   In TextEdit, choose File ‣ Open and select the subtitle file.

   

2. 02

   Start a new file as plain text

   Choose File ‣ New, then Format ‣ Make Plain Text.

Play subtitles with a video in VLC

VLC media player shows SRT files over the video it plays. Steps from the VideoLAN documentation for VLC 3.0:

1. 01

   Open Multiple Files

   Click Open Multiple Files…

   

2. 02

   Tick the check box

   Tick Use a subtitle file.

3. 03

   Pick the file

   Click Browse and select it. The dialog also sets encoding, alignment and size.

Or use the Video ‣ Subtitle Track menu while the video plays.

Import the file into a video editor

Video editors with caption support import a subtitle file as a captions track on the timeline.

How to create an SRT file

Write the file by hand, export it from a video's existing captions, or time it in a subtitle editor for long videos.

Write an SRT file by hand

1. 01

   Start a plain-text file

   Use Notepad on Windows or a plain-text TextEdit file on a Mac.

2. 02

   Type the blocks

   Number, timecode line, text and a blank line, numbered from 1.

3. 03

   Save as UTF-8

   Pick UTF-8 if the dialog offers an encoding, and check that the editor did not add .txt to the name.

Export an SRT file from existing captions

For a public YouTube video with captions, you can convert a YouTube video to SRT with TranscriptYou. TranscriptYou has no speech recognition of its own: it takes the creator's track or YouTube's automatic one.

1. 01

   Paste the link

   Paste the YouTube link into the form and press the convert button.

   

2. 02

   Check the track and download

   Here the track is English (auto), YouTube's automatic captions. Check the format next to Download and save the file.

   

3. 03

   Open the file

   The file is named after the video ID.

For your own video, YouTube Studio downloads the caption file from its Subtitles page: see how to download YouTube subtitles.

Time subtitles in a subtitle editor

Subtitle Edit and Aegisub show the audio waveform, so you time each block against the speech; they also renumber blocks after a split or merge.

How to edit an SRT file without breaking it

Fix wording in any text editor, but shift timing or split blocks in a subtitle editor, which renumbers the blocks and keeps the syntax valid. Keep at most two lines per block. The subtitle delay keys in VLC change playback only, not the file.

Before saving, check:

• a blank line after every block;
• a comma before the milliseconds;
• UTF-8 encoding;
• the .srt extension, with no .txt after it.

SRT vs VTT and other subtitle formats

SubRip is the most widely supported subtitle format; WebVTT adds styling and positioning for web players. The SRT format has no formal specification: the Library of Congress calls it not well standardized. For a YouTube video, see how to download YouTube subtitles in either format.

How to convert an SRT file to VTT, TXT or MP4

Converting to VTT or TXT is a text edit; converting to MP4 adds a subtitle track or burns the text into the picture. For WebVTT, add a WEBVTT line and a blank line on top and use a full stop before the milliseconds, as the W3C specification requires. For plain text, delete numbers and timecodes, or get a YouTube transcript as plain text.

For soft subtitles in an MP4, we ran this ffmpeg command on our export; it added a mov_text subtitle track without re-encoding the video:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i subtitles.srt -c copy -c:s mov_text output.mp4

MP4 timed text drops overlaps: extracting the track back cut each overlapping block at the next start. Burning in uses -vf subtitles=subtitles.srt, re-encodes the video and needs FFmpeg built with libass; ours lacked it, so we did not run it.

Why an SRT file is not working: common errors

Most SRT problems come from a broken file name, the wrong encoding or a timecode typo, not from the player:

• The player ignores the file: Windows hid a second extension (subtitles.srt.txt); show extensions and rename it.
• Garbled letters: the file is not UTF-8; save it again as UTF-8.
• A block is skipped or the upload rejected: a full stop instead of the comma, or no hours; write 00:01:02,500.
• Two subtitles merged: the blank line is missing; add it.
• Subtitles drift: the file was timed for another cut or frame rate; shift or stretch the timings in a subtitle editor.
• Two lines at once: blocks overlap in time; trim each end to the next start.

Overlaps come with YouTube's automatic captions. In our export, 3 of 6 neighbouring block pairs overlap: block 5 ends at 51.360 seconds, block 6 starts at 47.239, so both lines show for 4.1 seconds, because each block ends at its start plus the duration YouTube reports.

If a file from a YouTube video is beyond repair, convert a YouTube video to SRT again.