In case it would help other people, here’s how I did it. I would have something that looked like this:

9
00:00:36.900 –> 00:00:40.560
Kimberly Hirsh (she/her): Do you agree to participate in the study and to have the interview audio recorded?

With the help of this guide from Drexel and replies to this Stack Overflow post I now can remove the number, the timestamp, and the two extra lines created when I remove those. Here’s how I do it.

  1. Open the VTT file in my advanced text editor.
  2. Use the find and replace feature.
  3. For the thing to be replaced I use the regular expression ^[(\d|\n)].*$. You don’t need to know what a regular expression is. Just copy and paste that little code bit into the “Find” box.
  4. Make sure either “Regular expression” or “GREP” is selected.
  5. Click “Replace” to test it once and be sure if it works.
  6. If it works, click “Replace all.”

For BBEdit:

  1. Paste ^\s*?\r in the “Find” box.
  2. Make sure the replace box is empty.
  3. Repeat steps 5 and 6.

For Notepad++: 7. Then switch so that “Extended” is selected instead of “Regular expression” or “GREP.” 8. Paste \r\n\r\n in the “Find” box. 9. Put a single space in the replace box. 10. Repeat steps 5 and 6.

I hope this is helpful!