Search FAQs

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.

Filmot keeps a search's filters in its URL. Set the filters you want and bookmark the results page. Reopening the bookmark restores those selections, and you can change the search term while reusing the filters. Because the URL contains your search terms, filters and selected channels, anyone you share a bookmarked link with can see them, so check a link before sharing it.

To keep a named query, sign in and click the bell button on subtitle or metadata search. A saved search retains its query, filters and selected channels, together with a name and optional description. Manage it on Saved Searches.

You can also enable a daily email digest to receive newly found matches automatically. Saved searches require an account, while bookmarking a filtered URL does not.

No. Filmot does not have a reliable indicator of whether a YouTube upload was used as an advertisement. There is no dedicated filter for showing only ad videos or excluding them from search results.

Filmot supports keyword, Boolean, phrase and proximity operators in subtitle search and title expressions. Click the ? icon beside the search box to open the Search Syntax Cheat Sheet.

• Spaces: require all terms, though they need not be adjacent. Example: CRISPR gene editing. Do not type AND; it is treated as an ordinary search word.
• OR, written as |: match alternatives, such as "dark matter" | "dark energy".
• Double quotes: match an exact ordered phrase, such as "gravitational waves".
• Parentheses: group conditions, such as "stem cells" (therapy | treatment) or (CRISPR | "gene editing") ("sickle cell" | "cystic fibrosis").
• "w1 w2"~N: match words near each other in any order, such as "vaccine efficacy"~5.
• NEAR/N: match nearby terms, phrases or groups, such as "black hole" NEAR/10 "event horizon".
• NOTNEAR/N: match the first term without the second nearby, such as radiation NOTNEAR/100 microwave. The maximum distance is 500.
• * inside a quoted phrase: stand for exactly one word, such as "basic * spectroscopy".
• -word: exclude every video containing that word, such as quantum -computing. A query containing only excluded terms is invalid.
• Caption placeholders: search #FUCK# for censored words, or sound labels such as #Laughter#, #Music# and #Applause#.

The same operators work in the Video Title field under subtitle-search filters and in the title box on Metadata search.

Put a minus sign immediately before a word, such as quantum -computing. Filmot then excludes every video whose searchable transcript contains "computing", even if the word appears only once in an unrelated passage. You can exclude several terms or combine them with a phrase, for example neuroscience -psychology -self-help or "nuclear fusion" -fission.

A query needs at least one positive search term; a query consisting only of excluded words is invalid.

To exclude words in video titles, use the Video Title field under Filters in subtitle search, or the title box in Metadata search. Those fields support the same operators.

If you want to avoid a term near a match rather than reject the whole transcript, use NOTNEAR/N, with a distance up to 500. Examples include radiation NOTNEAR/100 microwave and "nuclear energy" NOTNEAR/60 weapons. The Search Syntax Cheat Sheet provides more examples.

Filmot supports proximity searches and a one-word wildcard inside quoted phrases. Open the Search Syntax Cheat Sheet with the ? icon next to the search box for more examples.

• "w1 w2"~N: finds the words in any order, with up to N words between them. Put ~ and the number directly after the closing quote, for example "vaccine efficacy"~5 or "tumor suppressor"~3.
• w1 NEAR/N w2: finds two terms within N words of each other, in any order, with a distance up to 500. It also accepts quoted phrases and grouped alternatives, for example "black hole" NEAR/10 "event horizon" or ("dopamine" | "serotonin") NEAR/10 ("receptor" | "pathway").
• "w1 * w2": inside a quoted phrase, * stands for exactly one word. "observed * decay" can match "observed radioactive decay" or "observed beta decay". Use additional asterisks for a longer gap, or combine alternatives: "basic * spectroscopy" | "basic * * spectroscopy".

To exclude a nearby term instead, use w1 NOTNEAR/N w2. For example, radiation NOTNEAR/100 microwave finds occurrences of "radiation" without "microwave" within that distance.

Use parentheses to group alternatives and combine them with other conditions. Terms separated by spaces are all required, while | accepts at least one alternative.

Examples:

• "stem cells" (therapy | treatment | transplant): match the phrase together with any of those clinical terms.
• (CRISPR | "gene editing") ("sickle cell" | "cystic fibrosis"): match a gene-editing term and one of the disease expressions.
• ("deep learning" | "neural network") (protein | genomics) -tutorial: combine AI and biology terms while excluding videos containing "tutorial".

Groups also work with proximity searches, such as ("dopamine" | "serotonin") NEAR/10 ("receptor" | "pathway"). Title fields accept the same syntax.

List the word forms you want with the OR operator |. For example, run | running | runner matches any of those forms. This also helps with spelling variants and automatic-caption transcription differences, such as "mRNA" | "messenger RNA" | "messenger R.N.A." or "CO2" | "carbon dioxide" | "CO 2".

The documented search syntax does not provide a word-ending wildcard such as run*. Its * wildcard works inside a quoted phrase and stands for exactly one word. For example, "observed * decay" matches a word between "observed" and "decay". Use more asterisks for longer gaps, or combine alternatives: "basic * spectroscopy" | "basic * * spectroscopy" | "basic * * * spectroscopy".

Open the ? help icon beside the search box for the complete operator list and examples.

Filmot does not provide unrestricted regular-expression or regex search across its full subtitle database. Use the supported search operators and metadata filters to narrow the results instead.

You can match exact phrases in double quotes, list alternatives with |, exclude terms with -word, group conditions with parentheses, use * for one word inside a quoted phrase, and search nearby terms with proximity or NEAR operators. Channel, upload date and other filters can further restrict the matching videos.

For example, "CRISPR cas9" | "CRISPR-Cas9" | "CRISPR Cas 9" searches several spelling or transcription variants. The ? icon beside the search box opens the syntax guide with additional examples.

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.

It depends on the page:

• Subtitle search: open the "Languages" section in the left sidebar and click a language. Each entry shows how many videos match.
• Metadata search: use the "Auto Lang" dropdown to filter by the automatically detected language. You can also pick one or more languages in "Manual Subs" to find videos with manually added subtitles, captions or transcripts in those languages.

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.

In manual subtitle search, Attempt Match to Video Language tries to keep subtitle tracks that match the language spoken in the video. A video may have several manually uploaded tracks, including translations, and Filmot cannot always tell which one represents the audio.

The filter assumes a match when:

• There is one manual subtitle track and no automatic captions.
• A manual track has the same language as the video's automatic subtitles.

Ambiguous cases, such as several manual languages with no automatic captions, can be excluded. This can hide a video even when its manual transcript contains your search term.

To include those tracks, click the Attempt Match to Video Language: Yes tag above the results and switch it to No. Also confirm that you are running Search Manual Subtitles rather than automatic subtitle search, since the two indexes are searched separately.

The Auto Lang filter in Metadata search represents the automatic-caption languages available in Filmot's index. Manually uploaded Chinese or Mandarin subtitles belong to Manual Subs, so they do not appear as automatic-caption tracks simply because they contain Chinese text.

If Chinese or Mandarin is not offered in Auto Lang, use Manual Subs to find videos with collected manual subtitles in that language. Check the AutoSubs and ManualSubs columns to see which track types Filmot has for a video, and use manual subtitle search to search their text.

Filmot displays captions collected from YouTube or uploaded there by creators; it does not generate transcripts itself.

Leave the language filters empty to search without a subtitle-language restriction.

In Metadata search, selecting several Manual Subs languages requires a video to have subtitles in all of them. The selections are combined with AND, rather than matching any one of the chosen languages. Selecting every language would therefore return very few videos, rather than search all languages freely.

If you want results for several specific languages independently, run a separate search for each one.

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 does not provide a reliable filter for European versus Brazilian Portuguese. Automatic caption tracks generally use the language code pt for Portuguese. Some manually uploaded tracks use regional codes such as pt-PT or pt-BR, but many are also labeled pt.

As an approximation, filter by the channel's country. In Metadata search, combine Portuguese in Auto Lang with Country, such as Portugal or Brazil. Subtitle search also has a Countries list in the sidebar.

A channel's country is self-reported and may be blank. Country filtering therefore misses some relevant videos and does not establish the dialect spoken in every result.

Filmot does not currently offer a filter or sort for subtitle difficulty, vocabulary difficulty or a language-learning level. You cannot select videos by an easy-to-hard score or learner category.

Metadata search can narrow videos by detected language, manual subtitle languages, upload dates and other video details. Those filters identify available languages and metadata; they do not measure how easy the captions are to understand.