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. 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.

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.

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.

Filmot provides a duration range filter rather than a box for entering an exact runtime. Use the Duration slider in the filters on subtitle search or Metadata search to set a minimum and maximum video length.

You can also sort by duration in either direction: use Sort By in subtitle search or the arrows in metadata search's Duration column. Combine a length range with channel, upload date or other filters to keep the result set manageable. Search totals are estimates, especially for broad queries.

Yes. On Metadata search:

1. In the Filters section of the left sidebar, set the upload date range with the "from" and "to" date fields. You can also narrow the Views range with the Views slider.
2. Click Update.
3. Sort the results or matches by views with the arrows in the Views column header. The down arrow sorts from the most-viewed videos down.

The view counts shown were captured when Filmot crawled, collected or fetched each video, not live from YouTube. They can be lower than the current counts on YouTube, especially for recently posted videos.

The Exact Match checkbox beside Manual Subs restricts the set of indexed manual subtitle languages. It is separate from searching for an exact quoted phrase or exact wording.

In Metadata search, selecting English and German normally finds videos that have manual captions in both languages, including videos that also carry other manual subtitle languages. With Exact Match turned on, the indexed manual subtitle language set must consist only of the languages you selected, so a video with English, German and French manual subtitles would be excluded. Its tooltip states that it keeps only the selected languages.

This setting concerns the subtitle tracks Filmot has collected, not a guarantee that YouTube currently offers no additional tracks. It does not require the video to be spoken in both languages, compare translation quality or match identical wording. Use the Auto Lang filter when you want to narrow results by automatically detected spoken language, and quote words in a text field when you want an exact phrase match.

Filmot collects video descriptions, but their text is not indexed for search. Subtitle and metadata searches do not match words that appear only in a description.

Accounts with patron benefits can include stored descriptions in search-result exports, subject to the export limits. Depending on various factors the urls in the collected descriptions might be truncated.

Yes, if Filmot already holds a record for that video. Filmot does not retrieve missing historical metadata from YouTube on demand. A stored title, channel or upload date can remain after a video is removed from YouTube or becomes private, but it may be outdated or incomplete.

To check a video ID:

• Open /video/ followed by the ID.
• Paste one or more IDs into the title box in Metadata search, separated by spaces or commas.
• Use the getvideos endpoint of the public API with an API key.

An ID alone cannot reconstruct information Filmot never collected.

Filmot cannot retrieve member-only video footage or subtitles. Basic details may appear in Metadata search, but subtitles for restricted videos are not available for new collection.

If a video later becomes publicly accessible, its captions may still be missing from Filmot until the record is updated. To check, search for the video by ID, title or channel and inspect the AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns. A later update is not guaranteed, and there is no individual-video reindexing request feature.

Age-restricted videos have similar limitations on subtitle collection.

Filmot cannot collect or index the subtitles, captions or transcripts of age-restricted YouTube videos. Their spoken content is therefore unavailable in subtitle search, although basic metadata may appear in Metadata search.

To inspect a record, paste the video ID into the metadata title box and check AutoSubs and ManualSubs. An empty column means no subtitle tracks of that type are indexed.

Age restriction is determined by YouTube. It is one of several reasons captions can be missing, alongside members-only access, discovery delays, low view counts and captions that YouTube has not made available.

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.

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 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.