YouTube Captions Fixer

yt-captions-fixer.userscript.js

// ==UserScript==
// @name         YouTube Captions Fix
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      2026-08-16
// @description  Blank out all instances of YouTube's censorship/sound detection in auto-generated captions, works for all caption generations.
// @author       luna (@celunah)
// @match        https://www.youtube.com/*
// @match        https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/*
// @match        https://m.youtube.com/*
// @match        https://music.youtube.com/*
// @icon         https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1236984687126384640.png?v=2
// @grant        none
// @run-at       document-start
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';
    /* match all instances of YouTube's censorship or sound detection
     * example captions given substitute "fuck" (censored) for 1 or more spaces */
    const censorRe = new RegExp(/\[(.*?)\]/gm); // censorship signatures, [Music], [Applause], [Laughter], etc. for any language
    const spaceRe = new RegExp(/\s{2,}/gm); // spaces leftover after signature cleanup, eg. "well fuck you man"
    const punctRe = new RegExp(/\s(?=[!?.])/gm); // spaces leftover before punctuation marks preceded by signature markers
    const altRe = new RegExp(
        "^(?:foreign|thank you|laughs|n|you)$|\\bheat(?:\\s+up\\s+here)?\\.?(?!\\w)",
        "gmi"
    ); // alternatives for [Music] and [Laughter], for older and newer ASR systems, may affect some genuine captions
    const shouldLog = true; // set to 'true' to log all changes made to the console
    const legacyMode = false; // set to 'true' to remove puncutation, capitalization and >> markers

    const log = (text) => { if (shouldLog) console.log(text); };

    const removeCaptions = () => {
      // interface with any caption element, even preview ones

      var captionBox = document.querySelector(".captions-text");
      var segmentBox = document.querySelector(".ytd-transcript-segment-renderer");
      var captions = document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-caption-segment");
      var transcriptCaptions = [
          ...document.getElementsByClassName("timeline-item-view-model"),
          ...document.getElementsByClassName("segment-text")
      ];

      // match detected captions
      for ( const caption of captions ) {

        // removes leading spaces from some caption lines
        caption.style.whiteSpace = "normal";

        // blank out detected signatures
        if ( caption.innerText.search(censorRe) !== -1 ) {
            log(`removed: ${caption.innerText.match(censorRe).join(", ")}`);
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.replaceAll(censorRe, "");
        }

        // blank out other signatures for sound detection
        if ( caption.innerText.toLowerCase().search(altRe) !== -1 ) {
            log(`removed alternative signature: ${caption.innerText.match(altRe)}`);
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.toLowerCase().replaceAll(altRe, "");
        }

        // clean up leftovers after signature blanking
        if ( caption.innerText.search(spaceRe) !== -1 ) {
            log("removed double whitespace");
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.replaceAll(spaceRe, " ");
        }

        // clean up excess whitespace after [censors] followed by punctuation (human captions)
        if ( caption.innerText.search(punctRe) !== -1 ) {
            log("removed whitespace before punctutation mark");
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.replaceAll(punctRe, "");
        }

        if ( caption.innerText.trim() === ">>" ) {
            log("removed blank new-speaker line");
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.trim().replaceAll(">>", "");
        }

        if ( caption.innerText.search(/Click for settings/gm) !== -1 ) {
            caption.innerText = caption.innerText.replaceAll(/Click for settings/gm, "These captions have been cleaned up");
        }

        /* remove fully blanked out caption lines
         * applies to caption lines during non-spoken section of videos,  eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HJRGygc1yc&t=50s
         *
         * "fuck fuck fucking football"
         * "[Music]                   " */
        if ( !caption.innerText ) {
          // .remove() [fucking] sucks, use .style.background = "transparent"; instead
          caption.parentElement.style.background = "transparent";
          log("removed stray blank caption");
        }

        /* remove fully blanked captions
         * applies to music-only videos, eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpaKHVOEDiE
         *
         * "[Music]" */

        if ( captionBox && captionBox.childNodes.length === 1 ) {
            // .remove() [fucking] sucks, use .style.background = "transparent"; instead
            captionBox.parentElement.style.background = "transparent";
            log("removed blank caption box");
        }


        if (legacyMode === true) {
           const originalText = caption.innerText;
           const newText = originalText.toLowerCase().replaceAll(/(?<![\p{L}\p{N}])([^\p{L}\p{N}\s'\-])|([^\p{L}\p{N}\s'\-])(?![\p{L}\p{N}])/gu, '');

           if (newText !== originalText) {
            caption.innerText = newText;
            log("converted caption to legacy format");
          }
        }
      }

      for ( const transcriptCaption of transcriptCaptions ) {
        // censor, sound, etc. markers
        if ( transcriptCaption.innerText.search(censorRe) !== -1 ) {
            log(`removed: ${transcriptCaption.innerText.match(censorRe).join(", ")}`);
            transcriptCaption.innerText = transcriptCaption.innerText.replaceAll(censorRe, "");
        }

        // "Heat.", "Heat up here.", "foreign", "thank you", etc.
        if ( transcriptCaption.innerText.search(altRe) !== -1 ) {
            log(`removed alternative signature: ${transcriptCaption.innerText.match(altRe)}`);
            transcriptCaption.innerText = transcriptCaption.innerText.replaceAll(altRe, "");
        }

        // whitespace cleanup
        if ( transcriptCaption.innerText.search(spaceRe) !== -1 ) {
            log("removed double whitespace");
            transcriptCaption.innerText = transcriptCaption.innerText.replaceAll(spaceRe, " ");
        }

        // punctuation to whitespace cleanup
        if ( transcriptCaption.innerText.search(punctRe) !== -1 ) {
            log("removed whitespace before punctutation mark");
            transcriptCaption.innerText = transcriptCaption.innerText.replaceAll(punctRe, "");
        }

        /* empty lines
         * applies to sections where there were only markers or "Heat.", etc.
         * "[Music]" */
        if ( !transcriptCaption.innerText ) {
            transcriptCaption.parentNode.style.background = "transparent";
            log("removed blank transcript box");
        }
      }
    }

    // Optimized removals are done using MutationObservers. You will not see any markers flash at all.
    const setupObserver = () => {
      if (document.body) {
        const observer = new MutationObserver(() => removeCaptions());

        observer.observe(document.body, {
          childList: true,
          subtree: true
        });

        removeCaptions();
      } else {
        setTimeout(setupObserver, 10);
      }
    };

    setupObserver();
})();