Search FAQs

Subtitle search and metadata search work on different information and have different coverage.

• Subtitle search: searches the spoken text represented by a video's subtitles, captions or transcript. Captions are normally crawled according to view-count and other priority criteria, so small channels and low-view videos may be missing. Results can be sorted by relevance, date, views and other options, and exports can include full subtitles.
• Metadata search: searches titles and video details, with filters for channel, detected language, manual subtitle languages, upload dates, views and more. It has no minimum view count and can include videos without collected captions, unlisted or deleted records, and basic metadata for members-only videos. A Partial data icon marks records discovered without a full crawl.

Both support operators such as "exact phrase", |, -word and NEAR/N. In metadata search, the AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns identify the subtitle tracks Filmot has collected. The home page shows the approximate size of each index.

Use subtitle search for dialogue and spoken quotes; use metadata search for titles and other video details, including records without searchable captions.

Wrap the phrase in double quotes, for example "gravitational waves". Filmot then looks for those words as an exact, ordered phrase or quoted phrase, instead of matching each word separately. Without quotes, gravitational waves only requires both words to appear somewhere in the transcript. More examples: "general relativity", "polymerase chain reaction" and "standard model of particle physics". To accept alternatives, combine phrases with |, for example "dark matter" | "dark energy".

If the words only need to be close to each other, use a proximity search such as "vaccine efficacy"~5. Put a quoted phrase directly followed by ~ and a number: it finds the words in any order, with up to that many words in between.

Yes. A phrase can match across adjacent subtitle lines within the same indexed caption track. It does not have to fit inside a single subtitle line or caption segment, because Filmot indexes each track as continuous text rather than as isolated cues.

For example, if one caption ends with “a different” and the next begins with “point of view,” searching "a different point of view" can still find the phrase. The line break between captions does not require a special operator or a wildcard.

The words must still satisfy your query. Extra words, different spellings or transcription errors can prevent an exact quoted phrase from matching. If the wording is uncertain, try a shorter phrase or a proximity expression such as "different point view"~5, which allows a few words in between and ignores order.

This matching works within one caption track. It does not stitch together text from different videos or combine the wording of an English track with a separate translated track. Open the result and read or play the surrounding captions to confirm the complete sentence.

Search with the words, title fragments or dialogue you remember, but keep in mind that Filmot matches indexed text rather than the meaning of a phrase. Spelling and transcription differences can affect results.

These techniques help with approximate wording or inaccurate automatic subtitles:

• Exact phrase: use double quotes, such as "vaccine efficacy", when you know the wording.
• Nearby words: use "w1 w2"~N or w1 NEAR/N w2 when the words may be separated or occur in a different order.
• Alternative spellings or word forms: join variants with |, such as colour | color. Quote alternatives containing several words.
• Context: combine variants with nearby words to reduce false positives, for example (filmot | philmont | philmot | filmont) NEAR/15 (youtube | subtitles | captions | transcript | transcripts).

Examples for terms frequently transcribed in different ways include:

• "CRISPR cas9" | "CRISPR-Cas9" | "CRISPR Cas 9" | "crisper cas9" | "krisper cas 9"
• "mRNA" | "messenger RNA" | "messenger R.N.A."
• "CO2" | "carbon dioxide" | "CO 2"

To search title words, use Metadata search, or combine subtitle words with the Video Title field under Filters. The ? icon beside the search box opens the syntax guide.

Filmot's index is incomplete and contains existing caption text rather than audio. If a video has no collected transcript, or was never indexed, a remembered spoken quote cannot find it through subtitle search.

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.

Yes. Open Metadata search, available under Metadata in the menu. Enter the title words or a quoted phrase, then combine them with filters such as channel, detected language, manual subtitle languages and upload dates. Title search supports the same operators as subtitle search, for example "radio telescope" or "stem cells" (therapy | treatment).

Metadata search does not require indexed subtitles, captions or transcripts and has no minimum view count. It can therefore find a known video even when its spoken content is not searchable.

Subtitle search matches caption text, so a phrase appearing only in a video's title will not match the main subtitle query. To require both title words and spoken words, use subtitle search with the Video Title field under Filters in the left sidebar. Both conditions must match the video.

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.

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.

A Query Syntax Error usually means a search operator is malformed. Check for:

• Unbalanced quotation marks or parentheses.
• NEAR/ or NOTNEAR/ without a distance number, up to 500.
• A quoted phrase followed by ~ without a number.
• A query containing only excluded words, such as -word, with no positive term.

You do not need to escape slashes in ordinary subtitle text. Before searching, Filmot replaces punctuation such as /, \, ?, !, $, &, @, :, =, commas and square or curly brackets with spaces.

When Filmot can identify the problem, the error message describes it. If a correctly formed query still fails, send the exact search expression through the contact form or the Discord server linked there.

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.

Yes, you can look a video up, search or find it by its ID or link instead of keywords:

• On metadata search, paste one or more video IDs or YouTube video links into the title box, separated by spaces or commas. Filmot lists the matching videos it knows.
• In the search box, enter just the 11-character video ID. If Filmot has the video, you go straight to its video page. Use the ID only, not the full link.
• You can also open a video's page directly at /video/ followed by the video ID.

The video page shows the video's metadata, or video details, and any available subtitles, captions or transcripts.

Filmot's search looks across many videos, but you can open a single video's subtitles, captions or transcripts and search them with your browser's find function (for example Ctrl+F).

To open a video's subtitles:

• Enter the video's 11-character ID (not the full URL) in the search box. If Filmot has the video, you go to its video page.
• Or open /video/ followed by the video ID.
• Or click the language flag next to a video on metadata search or on a channel page.

The page that opens lists all captions for that video, if Filmot has them.

Alternatively, filter a regular subtitle search by channel and title so that only one video matches.

Yes. In subtitle search, use the Video Title field under Filters to combine title words with spoken subtitle, caption or transcript words. A matching video must satisfy both conditions. For title search without a subtitle query, use Metadata search, which also supports channel, language, date and other filters.

Subtitle and metadata searches have separate result sets. Each search removes duplicate video results within its own set, but Filmot does not deduplicate across two separate searches. A video that matches both can therefore appear in both result lists or in alerts from two saved searches.

If you need one list without that overlap, use a single subtitle search with a title filter when both conditions are required. Separate saved searches can still notify you about the same video.

No. Filmot does not index or store YouTube playlist membership, so it cannot restrict subtitle searches to a playlist or reconstruct the playlists of a deleted channel.

You can instead restrict searches to one or more channels. Select the channels by name, @handle or UC channel ID in subtitle or metadata search. You can also paste a comma-delimited list of handles or channel IDs.

Filmot stores no video or audio files, and channel records cannot be used to recover footage.

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.

Subtitle and metadata search have a Filters panel in the left sidebar. On smaller screens, phones and tablets, it is hidden by default. Tap Filters at the top of subtitle results, or beside Search in metadata search, to open it. Use Close to dismiss the panel.

Set your options and click Update. Available controls include:

• Views and Likes: minimum and maximum sliders.
• Video Duration: a minimum and maximum length slider.
• Upload date: from/to fields, with More shortcuts for Today, This Week, This Month or This Year.
• Subtitle search: lists of matching channels, categories, languages and countries. Select an entry to filter by it; use the trash badge to exclude a category.
• Metadata search: license, livestream/regular-video status, listed/unlisted status and complete/partial data selectors.

Metadata search also has Text in title, Channel with Include/Exclude, Auto Lang with Match Manual, Manual Subs with Exact Match, and Country fields. Filters combine, so a video must satisfy all active conditions. Selecting several Manual Subs languages requires all those languages, rather than any one of them.

Active filters appear as tags above the results:

• Click a tag's x to remove that filter and reload the search.
• In subtitle search, Clear Filters removes additional filters together.
• The search-text tag cannot be removed; edit the query instead.
• Some tags reflect a setting or search mode, such as Hide Unavailable Videos or Attempt Match to Video Language in manual search.

Filters are retained in the URL, so you can bookmark a filtered search. In metadata search, Show Trends opens a chart; zooming it and choosing Filter By Chart Dates applies that period as the upload date range.

Dates are not set with operators typed into the search box. The search syntax help lists no date operators. Use the date fields in the Filters section of the left sidebar instead. They are on both subtitle search and metadata search.

1. Enter the upload "from" and "to" dates. Alternatively, open the More menu and pick Today, This Week, This Month or This Year to set the range quickly.
2. Click Update.

The range applies to each video's upload date. Dates are chosen in the sidebar fields rather than typed as search operators.

Filmot has no dedicated filter that removes or leaves out YouTube Shorts, because not all videos in the index have a reliable indicator of whether they are a Short.

As an approximation, Metadata search has a video duration filter, so you can restrict results or matches by video length. Because it only looks at length, it is not a precise Shorts filter.