Google Drive Introduces Video Transcripts For Easier Navigation, Here's How It'll Work

In a recent Workspace blog post, Google confirmed the launch of this feature, which builds upon automatic captions—a tool introduced in July 2024.

The transcripts will include timestamps, with each sentence appearing as a separate entry. There’s also a search bar in the panel, making it easy for users to find specific words or phrases.

Source : Unsplash/Rubaitul Azad

Google is rolling out a new feature for Google Drive that will help users navigate through videos more efficiently. Called video transcripts, this update enhances last year’s automatic captions feature. With this new addition, users will now be able to view and search through transcripts within videos stored in Drive. A major benefit of this feature is that tapping on a specific sentence in the transcript will instantly take the video to that exact moment.

Currently, Google is gradually making this feature available to all Drive users.

What’s New In Google Drive’s Video Transcripts?

In a recent Workspace blog post, Google confirmed the launch of this feature, which builds upon automatic captions—a tool introduced in July 2024. That feature allowed videos to automatically generate captions upon upload (though Workspace admins could restrict this to manual requests).

When first introduced, Google explained that speech recognition technology was used to create these captions, provided the spoken language in the video was English. The company had hinted at expanding support for other languages, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Previously, automatic captions were only visible while a video played, but there was no way to view the entire transcript separately. This update changes that by adding a transcript panel that appears on the right side when a video is played in Google Drive.

How Video Transcripts Work

The transcripts will include timestamps, with each sentence appearing as a separate entry. There’s also a search bar in the panel, making it easy for users to find specific words or phrases. Clicking on any sentence in the transcript will make the video jump directly to that moment, saving users the hassle of manually scrubbing through the timeline.

To use this feature, users must first play a video in Google Drive and ensure that automatic captions are enabled. This can be checked by looking for the CC button at the bottom right of the video player. Then, clicking on the Settings icon will reveal a new ‘Transcript’ option. Selecting this will open the transcript panel on the side, allowing users to browse, search, and navigate through the content with ease.