Search FAQs

Filmot continues to discover and index publicly accessible YouTube videos. Data is added in ongoing batches, generally roughly every day, rather than in real time or on a guaranteed schedule. A new upload usually takes at least one to two days to appear and can take longer, especially if it is less popular or has not yet been discovered. This delay applies to title and metadata search as well as subtitle search.

Channels are checked for new videos at varying intervals, and there is no fixed schedule. YouTube can also delay making captions available for hours or up to a day after upload, particularly for livestreams.

Patreon supporters can add channels on Prioritized Channels. Once active, a prioritized channel is typically processed within about a day or two, although timing varies and very large channels need approval first. Priority indexing picks up new uploads faster and improves coverage in both metadata and subtitle search, regardless of view count.

Filmot covers only part of YouTube. Subtitle coverage is selective and favors more popular videos; low-view videos may never enter subtitle search without channel priority. Metadata search has no minimum view count, but each video must still be discovered. The home page shows the current totals for both indexes. Use Metadata search to check a channel's videos and its AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns to see which captions have been collected.

Filmot indexes individual YouTube videos, so a channel can be listed while some of its videos are missing or have no searchable subtitles. Coverage is substantial but incomplete: Filmot cannot collect and index the captions of every video on YouTube.

Subtitle search and metadata search have different indexing criteria:

• Subtitle search: coverage is selective and favors more popular videos, and the priorities can change over time. Videos with few views may therefore have no indexed subtitles, captions or transcripts.
• Metadata search: there is no minimum view count. Filmot collects the video details it can discover, including records without subtitles. A half-star Partial data icon marks videos that were found but never fully crawled.

Patreon supporters can add channels on Prioritized Channels. Their videos are indexed regardless of view count, improving coverage in both indexes. The available slots depend on tier: Official Patron 1, Silver Patron 4 and VIP Patron 15. Captions must still be available and accessible on YouTube; priority indexing does not generate transcripts or provide access to restricted content.

To inspect a channel's coverage, select it in Metadata search. The AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns show which subtitle languages Filmot has collected for each video.

You can look up one video or check a list of YouTube video IDs against Filmot's stored index.

• One video: open /video/ followed by its 11-character video ID. Entering that ID alone in Filmot's main search box also opens the video page when Filmot knows it. Use the ID rather than the full URL for this shortcut.
• One or several videos in metadata search: paste video IDs or YouTube links into the title box on Metadata search, separated by spaces or commas. Filmot lists the matching records it has.
• A channel: open /channel/ followed by its UC channel ID to view its known videos.

In metadata results, AutoSubs and ManualSubs show the languages of collected subtitle tracks. Click a language flag to open the captions or transcript. An empty column means no subtitles of that type are indexed. A half-star Partial data icon means the video was discovered but never fully crawled. If no record is returned, Filmot has no matching video in its index.

To check a long list, export the matching metadata and compare its video IDs with your original list. IDs fit into URL length limits more efficiently than full links. Metadata exports contain up to 100 rows without patron benefits or 10,000 with them, reduced to 2,500 if full subtitles are included, so large lists may need several batches.

To search within one video's transcript, open its video page or click a subtitle-language link, then use your browser's Find function, such as Ctrl+F on a computer or Find in page on a phone or tablet. You can also narrow subtitle search by channel and title until only that video matches. On mobile, entering the video ID works the same way; YouTube's own transcript view may also be accessible through your browser's desktop mode.

Captions can be absent because they do not exist on YouTube, are inaccessible, or were never crawled.

Select the channel in Metadata search, or find it through Channel Search and open its Filmot channel page. These listings show the videos Filmot has discovered; they do not guarantee complete coverage of every upload.

In metadata results, AutoSubs and ManualSubs list the subtitle languages collected for each video. An empty column means no captions of that type are indexed. A half-star Partial data icon identifies an incomplete video record.

On a channel page, Metadata/Sort opens that channel's videos in metadata search ordered by upload date, view count or duration. You can also sort the metadata table by Last fetch in either direction. This indicates when Filmot last encountered information about the video; it does not necessarily mean that its statistics or subtitles were updated then, or that this was its first indexing date.

If the channel is missing from subtitle lookup, try metadata search instead. The home-page and subtitle-search lookup only includes channels with searchable captions; metadata and unlisted search include known channels without them.

Patreon supporters can submit a channel on Prioritized Channels for better coverage. If it is already in the priority list, the page says so and does not add it again; otherwise it is placed in the priority queue.

A half-star Partial data icon indicates that Filmot has an incomplete record of a video. Some records contain a video ID, channel ID, upload date or view count but lack a title, other statistics or subtitles.

You can see the icon on channel pages and in metadata search results. Metadata search includes incomplete records it has discovered, even if no subtitles are available; subtitle search is more selective. Videos not discovered by Filmot will not appear at all.

Patreon supporters can add channels on Prioritized Channels to improve coverage, but prioritization cannot make inaccessible videos or missing captions available.

No. Filmot does not provide a submission form for playlist links, individual video IDs or missing video details, and it is not set up to ingest user-supplied records for indexing. Its API also has no endpoint for requesting a video recrawl.

Patreon supporters can add whole channels on Prioritized Channels, using a name, @handle or UC channel ID. Priority indexing improves coverage regardless of view count; it is a channel-level feature rather than a way to submit individual videos.

Filmot's discovery of unlisted videos is incomplete, and it cannot guarantee that any particular unlisted video will be found.

Filmot displays stored statistics, not live YouTube counts. Views, likes and subscriber information reflect the data available when a record was collected or updated, and may differ from current YouTube values. Continuous refresh is not guaranteed.

Metadata search displays recorded view and like counts and supports sorting by them. Last fetch indicates when Filmot last encountered information about a video; it does not necessarily mean that every displayed metric was updated then.

Channel pages may display a historical subscriber chart when enough observations exist. Treat all these figures as recorded snapshots rather than real-time measurements.

The Last fetch column in Metadata search indicates when Filmot last encountered information about a video. You can sort the column in either direction.

This is not necessarily the video's first indexing date or the time its full metadata, statistics or subtitles were updated. Filmot does not provide a complete per-video collection history or exact timestamps for every field.

In subtitle search, Index New-Old and Index Old-New sort results by when a video was added to the subtitle index. Those options are separate from Last fetch.

No. Filmot searches existing subtitles, captions and transcripts supplied through YouTube, including those uploaded by creators. It does not generate captions from audio or perform speech-to-text transcription.

A video without an indexed subtitle track may still appear in Metadata search by title, channel or other details. Patreon supporters can prioritize channels for broader coverage, but prioritization cannot create captions that do not exist.

No. Filmot does not use OCR to read text from video frames. It cannot search words displayed on slides, signs, screenshots or screen recordings unless those words also appear in indexed text. Likewise, captions permanently embedded in a video image are not searchable by themselves.

Subtitle search uses the caption tracks Filmot collects: YouTube's automatic subtitles and separate manually uploaded captions. Burned-in subtitles, also called hardcoded or open captions, are part of the image rather than a distinct subtitle track, so their wording can be found only if it also appears in an indexed caption or transcript. A visible title or on-screen phrase may instead be searchable through Metadata search when it also appears in the video's stored title.

If you have a screenshot or remember text that was shown on screen, try the words spoken at that moment, the video's title or the channel name. A screenshot or image cannot be submitted to Filmot as a visual or reverse-image search. Finding a caption match can help locate a candidate video, but you still need to open and play it to confirm the visual content.

Filmot indexes caption tracks provided through YouTube. Automatic captions can contain transcription or language-detection errors, while manually supplied tracks may contain translations or text that differs from the speech.

To report a subtitle-quality problem, open the video's subtitles page and use Report. Select the relevant issue, provide the video URL and an approximate timestamp if possible, and include a short description. A captcha check may be required. Avoid sending unnecessary personal information.

For privacy or copyright complaints, use the contact form rather than a subtitle-quality report. Those requests are reviewed separately.

When searching for frequently misheard words, combine spelling alternatives with |, for example "birthing" | "berthing". For other site problems, contact support or use the Discord link on that page.

Filmot stores snapshots of subtitles collected when a video was accessible. The stored text may differ from the captions currently available on YouTube; Filmot does not generate its own transcripts.

Captions added or regenerated later may not yet appear in Filmot. Conversely, previously collected text may remain even if YouTube subsequently changes or disables the caption track.

Patreon channel prioritization can improve coverage of newly accessible captions but cannot generate them.

Restrictions on access to a video or its captions can prevent Filmot from collecting new subtitles or transcripts. Age-restricted and members-only videos may still appear with basic metadata but without searchable captions.

Availability can change. A transcript collected while a video was accessible may remain in Filmot's historical index even if the current YouTube page no longer offers it.

YouTube's regional restrictions can prevent Filmot's crawler from accessing a video. When access is blocked by a geographic restriction, Filmot may be unable to collect its data or subtitles, so the video can be missing from search results.

These access restrictions are imposed by YouTube. A video being playable in your region does not necessarily mean it was accessible to Filmot when the crawler tried to fetch it.

Yes. Filmot indexes YouTube livestreams and live broadcasts with accessible captions, using the same general criteria as regular uploaded videos.

Subtitle crawling is normally prioritized by view count, so a stream with few views may not have its subtitles, captions or transcript indexed. Metadata search has no minimum view count and may still list the stream by title or channel even when no captions are searchable.

Captions must exist on YouTube. YouTube can make a livestream's subtitles available several hours, or up to a day, after the stream, and Filmot's own crawling is not instantaneous. New videos generally take at least a day or two to be discovered and processed.

Patreon supporters can add the channel on Prioritized Channels to improve indexing speed and coverage in both subtitle and metadata search, regardless of view count.

Filmot began collecting YouTube information around September 2018. That is a collection start date, not an upload-date cutoff: older videos may be indexed if they were accessible when Filmot encountered them.

Coverage is incomplete. Filmot generally cannot supply details for a video that became unavailable before it first collected those details. Subtitle indexing is selective; metadata search has no minimum view count but can only show records Filmot has discovered.

Use Channel Search to inspect known videos from a channel. A video's Filmot page shows available stored metadata and subtitles, but Filmot does not store a video or audio copy.

Filmot can index information only while it is accessible to the service. If a deleted, private or terminated-channel video became unavailable before Filmot collected its details, Filmot cannot reconstruct its missing title, subtitles or other metadata from its ID alone.

Filmot does not accept user-submitted historical records for addition to the index. To check an existing record, select the channel in Metadata search; a half-star Partial data icon indicates an incomplete record.

The IA links in video listings let you check for independently archived copies on the Internet Archive. Filmot does not store the video or audio files. For videos still publicly accessible, Patreon supporters can use Prioritized Channels to improve indexing coverage.

No. Filmot does not accept uploaded, crowdsourced or otherwise user-submitted subtitles, captions or transcripts. It indexes caption data collected from publicly accessible YouTube videos.

This also applies to transcripts from members-only or other non-public videos. Filmot cannot fetch their captions, and supplying a transcript yourself does not add it to the index. Basic metadata for members-only and age-restricted videos may still appear in Metadata search.

Filmot stores searchable text information about YouTube videos and channels, including video IDs, titles, upload dates, statistics and available subtitles or transcripts. It does not host, stream or cache the underlying video or audio files.

Thumbnails are normally loaded from YouTube. Where available, Filmot may display images from the Internet Archive; it does not maintain its own thumbnail archive. Video playback on Filmot is displayed through a YouTube iframe, which contains the player controls provided by YouTube. When available, Try Playing from Archive.org offers playback from an independently archived copy instead.

Filmot cannot recover footage from its database or grant rights to reuse a video's content. For permission to reuse content, contact the relevant rights holder.

Filmot indexes YouTube only. It searches YouTube video subtitles, captions and transcripts, together with titles, channels and other video metadata. Podcasts and content hosted on other platforms, such as Spotify, are not included.