YouTube Transcript Scraper — Subtitles & Captions API
Pricing
from $3.25 / 1,000 transcripts
Scrape YouTube transcripts, subtitles and captions from videos, Shorts, channels, playlists and search. Any language with fallback; text, timestamps, SRT, VTT or chunks for AI, plus title, views, likes, date and channel. Works with MCP, n8n and Make. No captions, no charge.
You can access the YouTube Transcript Scraper — Subtitles & Captions API programmatically from your own applications by using the Apify API. You can also choose the language preference from below. To use the Apify API, you’ll need an Apify account and your API token, found in API & Integrations in Apify Console.
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The limit per channel below applies to each search.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "languages": { "title": "Languages, in order of preference", "type": "array", "description": "Language codes such as <code>en</code>, <code>es</code>, <code>pt-BR</code> or names such as <code>English</code>. The first one the video has is taken; <code>en</code> also matches <code>en-US</code> and <code>en-GB</code>. Leave empty for the language spoken in the video.", "default": [ "en" ], "items": { "type": "string" } }, "fallbackToAnyLanguage": { "title": "When none of these languages exists, take the original one", "type": "boolean", "description": "On: a video without captions in your languages gives its captions in the language spoken in it, and <code>languageMatch</code> says <code>fallback</code>. Off: such a video gives a free row with the code <code>LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND</code> and the list of its languages.", "default": true }, "captionType": { "title": "Author or auto-generated captions", "enum": [ "manualFirst", "autoFirst", "manualOnly", "autoOnly" ], "type": "string", "description": "Author captions are uploaded by the channel and are usually cleaner; auto-generated captions are YouTube's speech recognition. Each row says which one came in <code>captionType</code>.", "default": "manualFirst" }, "allLanguages": { "title": "Every language the video has", "type": "boolean", "description": "One row per caption language of the video (each is a transcript and is charged as one). The languages above are not used then.", "default": false }, "listLanguagesOnly": { "title": "Only list the caption languages (free)", "type": "boolean", "description": "No transcripts: one free row per video with the video details and <code>availableLanguages</code>. Useful to see what a channel offers before transcribing it.", "default": false }, "outputFormats": { "title": "Transcript formats", "type": "array", "description": "What each row holds: <b>segments</b> — the <code>transcript</code> array of lines with <code>start</code>, <code>duration</code>, <code>end</code> in seconds; <b>text</b> — one plain string; <b>paragraphs</b> — the text split at pauses into readable paragraphs with their times; <b>chunks for AI</b> — pieces of about 150 words with times and a link to that second of the video, for ChatGPT, Claude and RAG; <b>timestamped text</b> — lines like <code>[1:23] …</code>; <b>SRT</b>, <b>VTT</b> and <b>XML</b> as strings.", "items": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "segments", "text", "paragraphs", "chunks", "timestampedText", "srt", "vtt", "xml" ], "enumTitles": [ "Segments with timestamps", "Plain text", "Paragraphs", "Chunks for AI (RAG)", "Timestamped text", "SRT", "VTT", "XML" ] }, "default": [ "segments", "text" ] }, "chunkWords": { "title": "Words per chunk for AI", "minimum": 20, "maximum": 2000, "type": "integer", "description": "Size of each piece in the <b>chunks for AI</b> format. Pieces are cut between caption lines, so they hold about this many words.", "default": 150 }, "saveFiles": { "title": "Save .srt, .vtt and .txt files with download links", "type": "boolean", "description": "Every transcript is also saved as three files in the run's key-value store, and the row gets their links in <code>fileUrls</code>. Handy for video editors and for sending a file to a client.", "default": false }, "removeNonSpeech": { "title": "Remove sound labels like [Music] and [Applause]", "type": "boolean", "description": "Also removes music notes and YouTube's <code>[ __ ]</code> for bleeped words. HTML entities such as <code>&#39;</code> are always turned into characters.", "default": true }, "wordTimestamps": { "title": "Word-level timestamps", "type": "boolean", "description": "Every line of an auto-generated transcript gets a <code>words</code> list with the start and end of each word. Author captions have no word timings, so their lines get <code>words: null</code>.", "default": false }, "includeDetails": { "title": "Exact publish date, likes, category, Shorts flag, @handle", "type": "boolean", "description": "One light extra request per video. Title, channel, views, duration, description, tags and thumbnail come in every row anyway.", "default": true }, "includeEngagement": { "title": "Comment count and channel subscribers", "type": "boolean", "description": "One more request per video. YouTube shows large numbers rounded (2.4M), and so do these fields.", "default": true }, "maxVideosPerSource": { "title": "Videos per channel tab, playlist or search", "minimum": 0, "type": "integer", "description": "The newest videos of a channel come first. 0 means no limit. Single video links are not counted here.", "default": 50 }, "channelTabs": { "title": "Channel tabs", "type": "array", "description": "Which lists of a channel to read when the link points at the channel itself. A link to <code>/shorts</code> or <code>/streams</code> reads only that tab.", "items": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "videos", "shorts", "streams" ], "enumTitles": [ "Videos", "Shorts", "Live streams" ] }, "default": [ "videos" ] }, "publishedAfter": { "title": "Published on or after", "type": "string", "description": "For channels, playlists and searches: <code>2026-09-01</code>, or a span back from today such as <code>30 days</code>, <code>2 weeks</code>, <code>6 months</code>. Videos outside the dates are skipped and not charged." }, "publishedBefore": { "title": "Published on or before", "type": "string", "description": "Same forms as above." }, "maxItems": { "title": "Most transcripts in the whole run", "minimum": 0, "type": "integer", "description": "The run stops after this many transcripts, whatever the inputs. 0 means no limit.", "default": 0 }, "includeErrorRows": { "title": "Rows for videos without a transcript", "type": "boolean", "description": "A free row with <code>status</code>, <code>errorCode</code> and <code>message</code> for every video that has no captions, is private, removed, age-restricted or blocked. Off: such videos only appear in the run summary.", "default": true }, "deduplicate": { "title": "Each video once per run", "type": "boolean", "description": "A video found by several inputs (a channel and a search, say) is transcribed and charged once.", "default": true }, "failIfAllInputsFail": { "title": "End the run as failed when no transcript came", "type": "boolean", "description": "For monitoring and automations that should alert on an empty result. By default such a run still succeeds and explains every video in a free row.", "default": false }, "strictInput": { "title": "Stop on unknown input fields", "type": "boolean", "description": "A limit written under a name the Actor does not know would be ignored, so by default the run stops before the first request and says which field is unknown. Off: unknown fields are ignored.", "default": true }, "runTag": { "title": "Tag for the rows", "type": "string", "description": "Any text; it is copied into every row as <code>runTag</code>, to tell runs apart in one table." }, "proxyConfiguration": { "title": "Proxy", "type": "object", "description": "Leave as it is: the Actor uses Apify datacenter proxies and moves the caption request to residential ones when YouTube refuses an address. 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