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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

YouTube's automatic captions sometimes replace a censored word with [ __ ]. Filmot indexes that position using the marker #FUCK#. Search for #FUCK# to find those positions; it does not reveal the original words.

For example, #FUCK# NEAR/5 #Laughter# looks for a censored marker near a laughter caption. The search marker is the same across subtitle languages, but the words censored and the available caption versions can differ.

Yes. Filmot indexes descriptive caption labels using placeholders such as #Laughter#, #Music# and #Applause#. Search them like ordinary terms, alone or combined with other words. For example, "#FUCK# #Laughter#"~10 finds censored positions near laughter.

Sound labels depend on the subtitle language, and YouTube's wording can change over time. Italian tracks may use #Risate#, #Musica# and #Applauso#. The censored-word placeholder #FUCK# is the exception: Filmot uses the same marker in every language.

Filmot supports non-Latin scripts. For Japanese, Chinese, Thai and other text indexed without spaces between words, put the word or expression in double quotation marks.

These scripts are indexed character by character. Without quotes, each character becomes a separate search term, so a video can match when the characters appear anywhere in its transcript, in a different order or far apart. With quotes, Filmot requires the exact sequence of characters.

For example, search "日本語" rather than 日本語, or "ภาษาไทย" rather than ภาษาไทย. To accept several expressions, quote each one and join them with OR: "東京" | "大阪".

Some channels only provide manually uploaded subtitles. If automatic subtitle search returns no results, try Search Manual Subtitles and inspect the video's AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns in Metadata search. In manual search, setting Attempt Match to Video Language to No can reveal tracks excluded because Filmot cannot determine which language matches the audio.

Transverso searches for a word or expression in one subtitle language and shows corresponding lines in a second language from the same videos. It helps you see how a phrase is translated in real caption context.

1. Enter your word or expression, using double quotes for an exact phrase.
2. Choose the Search Language, or Detect Language, and the Target Language.
3. Run the search. Results show both language versions, a button to play the video at the matching moment and a link to its side-by-side subtitles page.

Transverso uses selected manual subtitles aligned between language pairs. It does not use automatic captions and does not cover the entire subtitle index, so some videos found by regular search will not appear. Less common language pairs may have fewer examples.

Use subtitle search for broader coverage, or a video's side-by-side page to compare two available subtitle tracks directly.

Search for a word, idiom or expression to hear it used in real YouTube videos. This can help with pronunciation, listening comprehension, conversational vocabulary and understanding how a phrase actually sounds in context.

1. Enter the word, or put a multiword expression in double quotes, such as "ça marche".
2. Search automatic or manual subtitles and select your target language in the results sidebar. Automatic captions are often useful for locating spoken examples; a manual subtitle track may be a translation rather than the language you hear.
3. Play a result at its matching timestamp. On Settings, the Delay Video Start option can begin playback a few seconds before the match so you catch the surrounding sentence.
4. Compare examples from several videos or channels. Replay the passage and repeat it aloud if you are practising pronunciation or shadowing.

Country and channel filters can help you look for regional usage, but a channel's country does not guarantee the speaker's accent, dialect or native language. Listen to the audio and check the context: captions can mishear or mis-transcribe words, and a frequently occurring expression is not necessarily appropriate for every situation. Filmot surfaces real spoken examples; it does not score or assess your pronunciation automatically.