YouTube Transcript Downloader - Apify Actor

Download transcripts from YouTube videos with support for multiple languages.

Pricing

• Pay per result: $2.99 per 1,000 transcripts ($0.00299 per transcript)

Features

• Download transcripts from multiple YouTube videos
• Support for different languages
• Multiple output formats (plain text, SRT, VTT, JSON)

Input Configuration

• urls - list of Youtube urls.
• lanauge - Optional; if not specified, will get original language for each video.

{
    "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
    "language": "en",
}

Output Schema

Each result contains:

{
    "videoId": "VIDEO_ID",
    "videoUrl": "https://...",
    "videoTitle": "Video Title",
    "channelName": "Channel Name",
    "duration": 360,
    "language": "en",
    "transcript": "Full transcript text",
    "transcriptSegments": [
        {
            "text": "Segment text",
            "start": 0,
            "duration": 5.2,
            "end": 5.2
        }
    ],
    "fetchedAt": "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "hash": "md5_hash_of_transcript"
}

How to Use

Using Python

1. Start an Actor Run

import requests

# Your Apify API token
API_TOKEN = "your_apify_api_token"
ACTOR_ID = "your_username/youtube-transcript-reliable"

# Start the actor
url = f"https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/{ACTOR_ID}/runs"
headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_TOKEN}",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

# Input for the actor
input_data = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0"
    ],
    "language": "en"
}

# Start the run
response = requests.post(url, json=input_data, headers=headers)
run_info = response.json()
run_id = run_info["data"]["id"]
print(f"Actor run started with ID: {run_id}")

2. Wait for Run to Complete

import time

# Check run status
while True:
    status_url = f"https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/{ACTOR_ID}/runs/{run_id}"
    response = requests.get(status_url, headers=headers)
    run_status = response.json()
    
    status = run_status["data"]["status"]
    print(f"Run status: {status}")
    
    if status in ["SUCCEEDED", "FAILED", "ABORTED"]:
        break
        
    time.sleep(2)  # Wait 2 seconds before checking again

3. Get the Results

# Get dataset items (transcripts)
dataset_id = run_status["data"]["defaultDatasetId"]
dataset_url = f"https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/{dataset_id}/items"

response = requests.get(dataset_url, headers=headers)
transcripts = response.json()

# Process each transcript
for transcript in transcripts:
    print(f"\nVideo: {transcript['videoTitle']}")
    print(f"Channel: {transcript['channelName']}")
    print(f"Language: {transcript['language']}")
    print(f"Transcript preview: {transcript['transcript'][:200]}...")

Complete Example Script

from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your API token
client = ApifyClient("your_apify_api_token")

# Prepare the actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0"
    ],
    "language": "en"
}

# Run the actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("your_username/youtube-transcript-reliable").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch results from the run's dataset
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"Video: {item['videoTitle']}")
    print(f"Transcript: {item['transcript'][:500]}...")  # First 500 chars
    print("-" * 80)

Using cURL

# Start the actor
curl -X POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/your_username~youtube-transcript-reliable/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
    "language": "en"
  }'

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
urls	Array	Yes	-	List of YouTube video URLs to process
language	String	No	"en"	Language code for transcripts (e.g., "en", "es", "fr")

Monitoring

View runs and logs in the Apify Console:

• Run history and statistics
• Detailed logs for debugging
• Dataset results
• Usage metrics for billing