# YouTube Transcripts Scraper: Text, Timed Segments, SRT (`arcadium/youtube-transcripts`) Actor

YouTube transcripts (full text, timed segments, language, auto-generated flag) for videos, Shorts, channels or playlists; from $2.48 per 1,000 transcripts. Caption languages, title, channel, date, views, srt/vtt. Videos without captions are free error rows.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/arcadium/youtube-transcripts.md
- **Developed by:** [Arcadium Data](https://apify.com/arcadium) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.80 / 1,000 transcripts

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## YouTube Transcripts Scraper: Text, Timed Segments, SRT

Give it YouTube video, Shorts, channel or playlist links (or plain video IDs) and it returns each transcript as JSON: full text, timed segments, language, whether it was auto-generated, every caption language the video has, and the video's title, channel, length, publish date and views. From $2.48 per 1,000 transcripts (less on higher Apify plans); you pay only for rows you get.

**Why this actor**

- Channel and playlist input with a date range, not just single video links.
- Agent-ready output: `languageMatched`, `availableLanguages` and error codes tell an agent what it got and why.
- srt and vtt formats for subtitle work, plain text for RAG and LLM summaries.
- Videos without captions, private, age-restricted or missing videos and repeats are free.

Built by Arcadium Data: public data, dated and agent-ready, never personal data.

### Use with AI agents

The actor takes plain JSON and returns one flat row per video, so an AI agent or MCP client (for example through [mcp.apify.com](https://mcp.apify.com)) can call `arcadium/youtube-transcripts` directly. Input example for "what does this video say":

```json
{ "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"] }
```

And for "the last 20 videos of a channel, in English":

```json
{ "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt"], "maxVideosPerSource": 20, "languages": ["en"], "includeSegments": false }
```

Read `transcript` (the text), `language` and `isAutoGenerated`; `segments` has timestamps for citations (`url` + `&t=<start>s`). 100 transcripts cost $0.45. A video without captions, a private or age-restricted video comes back as a free row with `rowType: "error"`, a `code` (`no_match`, `not_found`, `unavailable`, `blocked`) and a `message`, never as a failed run, so an agent can tell "no captions" from "try again later".

### What you get

| Field | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| `videoId`, `url`, `title` | The video. Shorts are returned the same way. |
| `channelName`, `channelId`, `channelHandle`, `channelUrl` | The channel that published it. |
| `durationSeconds`, `publishDate`, `viewCount`, `likeCount`, `category`, `isLiveContent`, `keywords` | Basic video metadata. `publishDate` is ISO 8601 with YouTube's offset. |
| `description` | Video description, short or full (your choice); emails and phone numbers removed. |
| `transcript` | The whole transcript as one string. |
| `segments` | Caption lines in order: `start` and `duration` in seconds, `text`. |
| `segmentCount`, `wordCount` | For chunking and token estimates. |
| `language`, `languageName`, `isAutoGenerated` | Which caption track you got, and whether it is YouTube speech recognition (`true`) or uploaded by the creator (`false`). |
| `languageMatched` | `false` when none of your `languages` existed and the original-language track was returned instead. |
| `availableLanguages` | Every caption track of the video (`code`, `name`, `isAutoGenerated`), so you can ask for another one. |
| `translationStatus`, `translatedFrom` | Only with `translateTo`: `original`, `translated` or `unavailable` (see Limitations). |
| `srt`, `vtt` | Ready subtitle files when `subtitleFormat` is `srt` or `vtt`. |
| `source` | The channel or playlist URL the video came from. |
| `scrapedAt` | When the row was read. |

Output example:

```json
{
  "rowType": "transcript",
  "platform": "youtube",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "channelHandle": "@RickAstleyYT",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "durationSeconds": 213,
  "publishDate": "2009-10-24T23:57:33-07:00",
  "viewCount": 1829055386,
  "likeCount": 19491653,
  "category": "Music",
  "isLiveContent": false,
  "keywords": ["rick astley", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "nggyu"],
  "description": "The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Never: The Autobiography OUT NOW!...",
  "language": "en",
  "languageName": "English",
  "isAutoGenerated": false,
  "languageMatched": true,
  "translationStatus": "not_requested",
  "translatedFrom": null,
  "availableLanguages": [
    { "code": "en", "name": "English", "isAutoGenerated": false },
    { "code": "en", "name": "English", "isAutoGenerated": true },
    { "code": "de-DE", "name": "German (Germany)", "isAutoGenerated": false },
    { "code": "ja", "name": "Japanese", "isAutoGenerated": false }
  ],
  "transcript": "[♪♪♪] ♪ We're no strangers to love ♪ ♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪ ...",
  "segmentCount": 61,
  "wordCount": 487,
  "segments": [
    { "start": 1.36, "duration": 1.68, "text": "[♪♪♪]" },
    { "start": 18.64, "duration": 3.24, "text": "♪ We're no strangers to love ♪" },
    { "start": 22.64, "duration": 4.32, "text": "♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪" }
  ],
  "source": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-22T08:00:00.000Z"
}
```

### Input

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt",
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFgquLnL59alCl_2TQvOiD5Vgm1hCaGSI"
  ],
  "languages": ["en"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 10
}
```

| Field | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `urls` | Video links (`watch?v=`, `youtu.be`, `/shorts/`, `/live/`, `/embed/`), bare video IDs, channel links (`/@handle`, `/channel/UC...`, `/c/...`, `/user/...`; add `/shorts` or `/streams` for those tabs) and playlist links. |
| `languages` | Preferred caption languages in order, e.g. `["en", "de"]`. `en` also matches `en-US`. Empty: the video's original spoken language. |
| `captionType` | `any` (uploaded first, then auto-generated), `manual` or `auto`. |
| `translateTo` | A language code. A native track in that language is used when the video has one; otherwise YouTube's own translation is tried. |
| `maxVideosPerSource` | Transcripts per channel or playlist (default 50, up to 5,000). Channels are read newest first. |
| `publishedAfter`, `publishedBefore` | Date range, `YYYY-MM-DD`. Skipped videos are free; a channel stops at the first older videos. |
| `includeSegments` | Timed caption lines (on by default). |
| `subtitleFormat` | `none`, `srt` or `vtt`. |
| `description` | `short` (default), `full` or `none`. |
| `maxResults` | Stop after this many transcripts in total. A cost cap. |
| `includeErrorRows` | A free row for every video or URL without a transcript (on by default). |

Input names of the most used YouTube transcript actors are accepted as they are (`youtube_url`, `channel_url`, `videoUrl`, `videoUrls`, `startUrls`, `language`, `max_videos`, `start_date`, `end_date`, `translate_to`, `targetLanguage`, `transcript_type`, `output_formats`, `maxVideosPerChannel`, `maxItems`, `outputFormat`), so an existing input can be pasted in.

### Use it from code

Python:

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("arcadium/youtube-transcripts").call(run_input={
    "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt"],
    "maxVideosPerSource": 5,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if item["rowType"] == "transcript":
        print(item["title"], item["wordCount"])
```

JavaScript:

```js
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('arcadium/youtube-transcripts').call({
  urls: ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
  subtitleFormat: 'srt',
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items[0].transcript.slice(0, 200));
```

### Pricing

You pay per transcript delivered. Videos without captions, private, age-restricted or missing videos, repeats and videos outside your date range are free. Every row already includes the video metadata (title, channel, length, date, views, caption languages); there is no extra metadata charge.

| Apify plan | Per 1,000 transcripts |
| --- | --- |
| Free | $2.48 |
| Bronze | $2.25 |
| Silver | $2.03 |
| Gold, Platinum, Diamond | $1.80 |

Plus a one-off $0.001 per GB of memory when a run starts.

Set a maximum cost per run in the Apify run options and the actor stops before it goes over.

### Related actors and data

- [YouTube Videos Scraper: Channels, Playlists, Search](https://apify.com/arcadium/youtube-videos)
- [Google News Scraper: Real Article URLs, Full Text](https://apify.com/arcadium/google-news)
- [Substack Posts Scraper: Likes, Comments, Free Post Text](https://apify.com/arcadium/substack-posts)
- [Arcadium Data MCP Server](https://apify.com/arcadium/arcadium-mcp): AI agents can ask the same questions as tools (`youtube_transcript`).

### Use cases

- RAG and knowledge bases: index a channel's or a course playlist's transcripts with timestamps for citations.
- Summaries and notes: feed `transcript` to an LLM; `wordCount` tells you how many tokens to expect.
- Content and competitor research: what a channel talked about this month (`publishedAfter`).
- Subtitles: download `srt` or `vtt` in the language you need.
- Agents: "watch" a video for the user by reading its transcript.

### Limitations

- Only captions YouTube already has (uploaded or auto-generated). Videos without any captions give a free `no_match` row; the actor does not download or transcribe audio.
- Auto-generated transcripts have no punctuation and can misspell names.
- **Translation:** YouTube currently refuses its machine-translated tracks to anonymous clients. With `translateTo`, a video that has a native track in that language returns it (`translationStatus: "original"`, common for big channels and TED talks, which carry dozens of languages); otherwise you get the original language with `translationStatus: "unavailable"`.
- Age-restricted and members-only videos need a signed-in account and are skipped (free `unavailable` row). Premieres and upcoming streams have no captions yet.
- Live streams: captions of a running live stream are not available; recorded streams work once YouTube has processed them.

### Privacy

Public data only, read the way an anonymous visitor's browser and the YouTube app read it. No login, no cookies, no account. Comments and viewer data are never collected. Emails and phone numbers that appear in descriptions or transcripts are replaced with `[email]` and `[phone]`. The channel name is the publisher of the video.

### FAQ

**Which language do I get?**
The first of your `languages` that the video has, uploaded captions before auto-generated ones. With no `languages`, the original spoken language (the language of the auto-generated track); a video without an auto-generated track gives YouTube's default track, usually English when there is one. `availableLanguages` lists everything the video offers.

**A video returned no transcript. Why?**
Look at its error row: `no_match` means the video has no captions (or none of the `captionType` you asked for), `not_found` that it is private or removed, `unavailable` that it is age-restricted, members-only or not published yet. These rows are free.

**How fast is it?**
About 1 to 1.5 seconds per video, 4 videos in parallel. 100 transcripts take one to two minutes.

**Something looks wrong in the output. Who do I tell?**
Open an issue on the actor page with the run link. We read them all.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ, https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ, a Shorts URL, a bare video ID (dQw4w9WgXcQ), a channel (https://www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt, add /shorts or /streams for those tabs) or a playlist URL. Channels and playlists give up to maxVideosPerSource videos each, channels newest first.

## `languages` (type: `array`):

ISO language codes in order of preference, e.g. \["en", "de"]; en also matches en-US and en-GB. The first one the video has is used. Empty or none available: the original spoken language (languageMatched is false when none matched).

## `captionType` (type: `string`):

Values: any (uploaded captions first, else auto-generated), manual (uploaded by the creator only), auto (YouTube speech recognition only). Videos without that type give a free error row. Default: any.

## `translateTo` (type: `string`):

ISO language code, e.g. es. A native track in that language is used when the video has one (translationStatus original). Otherwise YouTube's own machine translation is asked for; YouTube currently refuses it for anonymous clients, so you get the original with translationStatus unavailable.

## `maxVideosPerSource` (type: `integer`):

Transcripts per channel or playlist URL, 1 to 5,000 (default 50). Videos without captions or outside the date range do not count. Direct video URLs are not limited by this.

## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`):

Date as YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2026-01-01. Videos published earlier are skipped for free; on a channel the listing stops at the first older videos.

## `publishedBefore` (type: `string`):

Date as YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2026-06-30. Videos published later are skipped for free.

## `includeSegments` (type: `boolean`):

Adds segments: one entry per caption line with start and duration in seconds and its text. The joined transcript text is always included.

## `subtitleFormat` (type: `string`):

Values: none, srt, vtt. srt or vtt adds the captions as a ready subtitle file in the srt or vtt field. Default: none.

## `description` (type: `string`):

Values: short (about 300 characters, default), full, none. Emails and phone numbers are removed.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Stops the run after this many transcripts across all URLs, 1 to 1,000,000. A cost cap; leave empty for no limit.

## `includeErrorRows` (type: `boolean`):

Adds a free row (rowType error, with a code and message) for every video or URL that gave no transcript: no captions, private, age-restricted, not found. On by default.

## `maxRetries` (type: `integer`):

Advanced. How often a request is retried after a temporary error, 0 to 10.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Advanced. Leave empty: the actor starts on datacenter proxies and moves to residential when YouTube asks to confirm you are not a bot.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "languages": [],
  "captionType": "any",
  "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
  "includeSegments": true,
  "subtitleFormat": "none",
  "description": "short",
  "includeErrorRows": true,
  "maxRetries": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All rows of this run in the default dataset.

## `view_overview` (type: `string`):

No description

## `view_languages` (type: `string`):

No description

## `view_errors` (type: `string`):

No description

## `record_stats` (type: `string`):

Requests, data volume, retries, proxy tiers and cost per transcript for this run.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ],
    "languages": [],
    "captionType": "any",
    "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
    "subtitleFormat": "none"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("arcadium/youtube-transcripts").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
    "languages": [],
    "captionType": "any",
    "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
    "subtitleFormat": "none",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("arcadium/youtube-transcripts").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "languages": [],
  "captionType": "any",
  "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
  "subtitleFormat": "none"
}' |
apify call arcadium/youtube-transcripts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,arcadium/youtube-transcripts"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/9bLvkRQll5hHV1Rif/builds/XSVFr9qaTphP5nwEV/openapi.json