YouTube Transcript MCP Server 🎬

Extract verbatim transcripts from any YouTube video — including videos without captions. AI-powered transcription that captures every spoken word with automatic speaker identification.

Features

• Works on ANY video — does not rely on YouTube's auto-captions. Uses AI video understanding to transcribe directly from audio
• MCP-native — plug into any MCP-compatible AI agent via the Model Context Protocol
• Speaker labels — automatically identifies and labels different speakers
• Full verbatim output — every spoken word, no summarization or shortcuts
• One-shot mode — also works as a regular Apify Actor for batch processing

MCP Setup

Connect to this Actor as an MCP server from any compatible AI agent:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "youtube-transcript": {
            "type": "url",
            "url": "https://actors-mcp-server.apify.actor/sse",
            "headers": {
                "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
            }
        }
    }
}

Tools

transcribe_youtube

Transcribe any YouTube video to text.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
videoUrl	string	Yes	YouTube URL or video ID
includeMetadata	boolean	No	Include word count, speakers list in response

One-Shot Mode

Run as a regular Actor by providing videoUrl in input:

{
    "geminiApiKey": "your-api-key",
    "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"
}

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
geminiApiKey	string	Yes	API key for AI transcription (get one free)
videoUrl	string	No	YouTube URL for one-shot mode

Output

{
    "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...",
    "title": "Video Title",
    "transcript": "Speaker 1: Hello and welcome...",
    "wordCount": 5432,
    "speakers": ["Speaker 1", "Speaker 2"],
    "error": null,
    "processedAt": "2026-03-01T20:00:00.000Z"
}

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• https://youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• Just the video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ

Pricing

Pay per transcript — no subscription.

Event	Price
Transcript	$0.05 per video
Actor start	$0.01 per run

Plus minimal AI processing costs from your own API key.

Use Cases

• 📚 Research — get searchable text from lectures, interviews, podcasts
• 🤖 AI Agents — feed video content into your agent's context via MCP
• 📝 Content Creation — repurpose video content into articles and summaries
• 🔍 Search — make video content searchable and indexable
• 🌐 Accessibility — generate transcripts for videos lacking captions