Youtube Transcript Ninja 🔥🎬

Extract video transcripts (subtitles/captions) from YouTube URLs. Built for Apify Actors using Python ⚡. Reads input 📥 and writes dataset items 📦.

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Features 🚀✨

• 🎞️ Works with video or Shorts
• 🎯 Handles single or multiple YouTube URLs
• 📝 Fetches transcripts/captions when available
• 🔄 Retries with exponential backoff for failed requests
• 🌐 Supports Apify Proxy or custom proxy settings
• 📊 Outputs raw transcript data + clean normalized text arrays

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Input ⚙️🔑

Provide JSON to the actor:

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description	Example
startUrls	array<{url:string}>	string	✅	—	One or more YouTube video URLs.
proxyConfiguration	object	❌	—	Apify Proxy settings (datacenter/residential, country). under the hood.	{ "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"], "apifyProxyCountry": "US" }

Field reference 📑

Field	Type	Description
inputUrl	string	YouTube video URL that was processed
fetchedAt	string (ISO UTC)	Timestamp when transcript was fetched
success	boolean	true if transcript fetch succeeded, even if transcript is empty
raw_response	object	null

Example input

{
  
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BthfXVCRWEQ",
            "method": "GET"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWAdfuPpLOc",
            "method": "GET"
        }
    ] 
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    },
}

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Example output

[
     
  {
    "video_id": "BthfXVCRWEQ",
    "title": "I Hatched the World's Biggest vs Smallest Eggs",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BthfXVCRWEQ",
    "lang": "en",
    "format": "vtt",
    "segments": [
      {
        "start": 0.12,
        "end": 5.2,
        "text": "Here is the world's biggest egg...\nand here is one of the smallest."
      },
      {
        "start": 5.72,
        "end": 9.6,
        "text": "I'm hatching 3 to see which one makes the\nbest pet."
      },
      {
        "start": 9.96,
        "end": 13.36,
        "text": "But as they grew, so did the problems."
      },
      {
        "start": 13.6,
        "end": 17.52,
        "text": "I lost my space, my sleep\nand my sanity."
      },
      {
        "start": 18.28,
        "end": 21.4,
        "text": "But I didn't realize this would be the most\nexpensive,"
      },
      {
        "start": 21.6,
        "end": 25.56,
        "text": "dangerous and emotionally draining video\nI've ever made."
      },
      {
        "start": 26.44,
        "end": 28.48,
        "text": "I can't do this anymore."
      },
      {
        "start": 29.96,
        "end": 33.32,
        "text": "To pull this off, I ordered 10 ostrich,\n20 duck"
      },
      {
        "start": 33.32,
        "end": 37.76,
        "text": "and 100 quail eggs. Each one needs their own\nincubator,"
      },
      {
        "start": 37.76,
        "end": 42.48,
        "text": "but it didn't take long until the very first\nquail are beginning to hatch."
      },
      {
        "start": 45.24,
        "end": 48.68,
        "text": "Some struggle, but it's only a matter of\ntime."
      },
      {
        "start": 52.16,
        "end": 54.56,
        "text": "The world just got a little louder."
      },
      {
        "start": 56.56,
        "end": 60.24,
        "text": "The hatching was easy,\nbut I'd soon be facing the chaos,"
      },
      {
        "start": 60.4,
        "end": 63.79,
        "text": "the stress and the danger I didn't see\ncoming."
      },
      {
        "start": 64.79,
        "end": 68.27,
        "text": "But for now, the quail are impossibly small."
      },
      {
        "start": 68.31,
        "end": 69.95,
        "text": "Look at this! I'm a dad."
      },
      {
        "start": 69.99,
        "end": 73.78999999999999,
        "text": "Barely bigger than a coin and lighter than a\npiece of pasta."
      },
      {
        "start": 73.99,
        "end": 78.43,
        "text": "I'll be raising them to adulthood,\nalong with the duck and ostrich."
      },
      {
        "start": 78.78999999999999,
        "end": 83.23,
        "text": "But I move them into their brooder, because a\nduck is about to hatch."
      },
      {
        "start": 84.63,
        "end": 86.99,
        "text": "You can see it just barely moving."
      },
      {
        "start": 87.75,
        "end": 89.83,
        "text": "He takes his first breath of air."
      },
      {
        "start": 90.91,
        "end": 94.31,
        "text": "Piece by piece, the shell began to split."
      },
      {
        "start": 95.07,
        "end": 97.39,
        "text": "It now just hangs by a thread."
      },
      {
        "start": 100.43,
        "end": 102.47,
        "text": "Welcome to the world,\nlittle one!"
      },
      {
        "start": 103.99000000000001,
        "end": 107.99000000000001,
        "text": "But he has no idea of the journey he was\nabout to face ahead."
      },
      {
        "start": 108.47,
        "end": 112.19,
        "text": "But unlike the quail,\nthey will bond to the first moving thing they"
      },
  }

]

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