Ferroelectric ceramics hold great promise for applications in solid-state cooling and energy harvesting from waste heat due to their electrothermal energy conversion capabilities. Here, we synthesized crystallographically textured (Ba0.95Ca0.05) (Ti0.87Zr0.12Sn0.01)O3 (BCZTSn) ceramics using tape casting and SrTiO3 (ST) single-crystal templates, which resulted in preferred grain orientation with a Lotgering factor as high as ∼90.8 %. The grain morphology, pyroelectric properties and the thermal-to-electrical energy conversion of BCZTSn-ST were characterized in detail. The textured BCZTSn-ST ceramics exhibit a remarkably high thermal-to-electrical energy conversion density of 0.787 J cm−3 in the temperature range of 303–373 K and large electrocaloric (EC) temperature change of ∼2.3 K at 373 K. This works demonstrates that preferred grain orientation is a promising way to improve EC and energy harvesting properties in the Pb-free BaTiO3-based ferroelectric ceramics.