Search FAQs

Filmot's main menu provides access to these search tools:

• Home: subtitle search. Use Auto for automatic captions or Manual for manually created subtitles and transcripts.
• Metadata: search video titles and details with channel, language, date and other filters, including records without indexed captions.
• More → Channel Search: look up channels by their stored names; channel lookup boxes also accept @handles and IDs.
• More → Unlisted Video Search: browse and search known unlisted video records.
• More → Word Cloud Search: find channels where a word is characteristic.
• More → Transverso: compare how expressions are translated in matching manual subtitle tracks.
• More → Title Restorer: find the optional user script that displays stored historical titles and thumbnails in YouTube playlists.

When signed in, the profile menu also includes My Notes, Saved Searches, Daily Results, API Keys and Settings. Prioritized Channels is available with supporter benefits.

Filmot searches its own index rather than YouTube in real time. A video can be missing entirely, have only metadata, or have subtitles that do not match your search. A channel being listed does not mean every video or caption track has been collected.

Common reasons include:

• Discovery and indexing delays: new uploads generally take at least a day or two to appear, sometimes longer. A new channel may not be known yet.
• Selective subtitle coverage: subtitle indexing favors more popular videos, so a video with few views may have no indexed subtitles. Metadata search has no minimum view count, so a low-view video may still be listed there.
• Missing or inaccessible captions: Filmot uses subtitles that YouTube generates or hosts; it does not transcribe audio. YouTube may not provide captions, may have disabled them, or may not have generated them yet. Availability also varies by language and by when automatic captions became available. Members-only and age-restricted videos allow collection of basic metadata, but their subtitles cannot be fetched.
• Partial data: a half-star icon marks an incomplete video record, so its title, statistics or subtitles may be missing.
• Different subtitle tracks: automatic and manual subtitles are searched separately. Switch to Search Manual Subtitles if the video has manually uploaded captions. In manual search, setting Attempt Match to Video Language to No can reveal tracks excluded because the spoken language is uncertain.
• Different wording: automatic speech recognition may spell words incorrectly, and Filmot's stored transcript can differ from the current captions on YouTube. Try a shorter quoted phrase, alternatives with |, and fewer filters.
• Title-only wording: subtitle search matches caption text. If the phrase appears only in the title, use Metadata search.
• Deleted or unavailable videos: detected deletions are periodically purged from subtitle search. Stored metadata may still appear in metadata search or on the video's page. Hide and skip unavailable videos on Settings controls the display of unavailable results, but cannot restore purged subtitle matches.

To check a video, paste its ID into the title box in metadata search and inspect AutoSubs and ManualSubs. Each column lists collected subtitle languages; an empty column means no tracks of that type are indexed. Click a language flag to open the transcript. If available, you can also export full subtitles from metadata search within the normal row limits.

To check a channel, select it in metadata search or open its channel page. The home-page and subtitle-search channel lookup only lists channels with searchable subtitles; metadata search, unlisted search and Channel Search include known channels without them.

Patreon supporters can add channels on Prioritized Channels to improve coverage in both indexes regardless of view count. Captions must still exist and be accessible on YouTube.

Use the channel lookup box on the home page, subtitle search or metadata search. Type the channel's name, @handle or UC channel ID, then select the matching suggestion so it becomes a green channel tag. Selecting the suggestion ensures that you search the intended channel; unselected text can automatically resolve to several matching channels.

With the channel selected:

• Enter a spoken word or quote in subtitle search to match its automatic or manual captions.
• Use the title box in Metadata search to match video titles.
• Use subtitle search's Video Title field under Filters to require both title words and matching subtitle text.

You can also start directly on the channel's Filmot page. The search box below the channel card has Auto for automatic subtitles, Manual for manually created captions and a title button for video titles. Each search is restricted to that channel.

Additional filters combine with the channel and query. Remove an active filter with the x on its tag when you want to broaden the results.

Use the channel lookup box on the home page, subtitle search, metadata search or unlisted video search.

• Type a channel name, @handle or UC channel ID and click the matching suggestion to create a green channel tag. Repeat to add more channels.
• To add several at once, paste a comma-delimited list such as @LinusTechTips,@JerryRigEverything,@Dave2D,@GamersNexus. You can mix handles and channel IDs and select up to 200 channels per search.
• If you enter text without selecting a suggestion, Filmot automatically looks it up and uses up to the top six matching channels. Select the suggestion when you need exactly one channel.
• Where an Include/Exclude switch is available, Include restricts the search to the selected channels; Exclude removes those channels from the results.

To reuse a channel list, bookmark the subtitle or metadata search URL. The selected channels are retained in the address, so you can reopen it and change the query or other filters. Signed-in users can also click the bell button to save a named search with its query, channels, filters and description.

The lookup on the home page and subtitle search only includes channels with subtitles available for search. Metadata and unlisted search include all known channels, even when no captions or transcripts have been indexed.

Filmot cannot limit search results or matches to your YouTube watch history.

For your subscribed channels, you can build the list yourself and search only inside it:

• In the channel lookup box on the home page, subtitle search or metadata search, type a channel name and click a suggestion. You can also paste a comma-delimited list of handles or UC channel IDs, for example @LinusTechTips,@JerryRigEverything,@Dave2D,@GamersNexus. Handles and channel IDs can be mixed in one list.
• Use up to 200 selected channels per search.
• If an Include/Exclude switch is shown, choose Include to search only inside the selected channels.

To reuse the list, bookmark the search page. Signed-in users can also save a search with its selected channels; see Saved Searches.

Use the channel lookup box on the home page, subtitle search or Metadata search. Enter the channel's name, @handle or full UC channel ID, select the matching suggestion and open the resulting green channel tag's tooltip. It contains links to the channel's Filmot page and YouTube channel.

To add several channels at once, paste a comma-delimited list of handles or IDs. You can mix them, for example @DIYPerks,UCWFKCr40YwOZQx8FHU_ZqqQ. You can also open a known channel directly at /channel/ followed by its UC channel ID.

If a channel recently changed its YouTube name, Filmot may still have the old name. Non-standard Unicode characters in a name can also make lookup difficult. Try its @handle or full UC ID; the ID is the most reliable option because it does not depend on the display name.

The home-page and subtitle-search lookup only includes channels with searchable captions. Metadata and Unlisted Video Search include known channels without indexed subtitles, so try those pages if the channel is missing from subtitle lookup.

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.