Search FAQs

Filmot can help you look for an unknown song when you remember some of the lyrics and those words appear in indexed YouTube captions. It does not identify music from a recording, melody or humming, and there is no audio-upload or sound-matching search. Finding a song through Filmot is a text search for captioned lyrics, not acoustic fingerprinting.

Start with a distinctive line in double quotes, then try Search Automatic Subtitles and Search Manual Subtitles separately. If you are unsure of the exact wording, search a shorter fragment or join plausible alternatives with |. Music, background noise and singing can make automatic captions inaccurate, so the indexed text may differ from the lyrics you hear.

A lyric video that shows the words on screen may still have no searchable caption track, and a music video may have captions disabled or may simply not have been collected yet. If you know an artist, band or possible song title, try Metadata search as well.

Listen to each candidate to confirm the song. A result could be a cover, a reaction, a discussion or someone quoting the same line. An absence of matches does not prove that the song has never been uploaded to YouTube.

Automatic and manual subtitles are searched separately. Filmot does not combine both types in one caption or transcript search. Manual tracks can contain translations, commentary or text that differs from the spoken audio, so combining them with automatic captions would make the results less consistent.

On the home page, choose Search Automatic Subtitles or Search Manual Subtitles. On a results page, use the Automatic Subtitles and Manual Subtitles buttons to switch search types.

Metadata search has separate AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns and can filter videos by their automatic or manual subtitle languages without matching caption text. Use it to inspect which tracks Filmot has collected.

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.