YouTube Transcript & Captions Scraper

Extract transcripts, captions, and subtitles from any YouTube video. Supports auto-generated and manual captions in 100+ languages with multiple output formats.

Features

• Universal Transcript Extraction: Works with any YouTube video that has captions enabled
• 100+ Languages: Supports all languages available on YouTube
• Auto-Generated Fallback: Falls back to YouTube's auto-generated captions when manual captions unavailable
• Translation: Translate transcripts to any supported language
• Multiple Output Formats: Plain text, timestamped, SRT, VTT, or JSON
• Video Metadata: Optional extraction of title, channel, views, duration
• Batch Processing: Process multiple videos in a single run
• High Success Rate: API-based extraction (no browser needed)

Use Cases

• Content Repurposing: Turn video content into blog posts, articles, or social media
• SEO Optimization: Extract text for video descriptions and metadata
• Accessibility: Generate captions for accessibility compliance
• AI Training Data: Build datasets from YouTube content
• Research: Analyze video content at scale
• Translation: Get transcripts in your preferred language
• Note Taking: Quickly extract key points from educational videos

Input

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "preferredLanguages": ["en", "en-US"],
  "includeAutoGenerated": true,
  "outputFormat": "text",
  "includeVideoMetadata": true,
  "translateTo": null,
  "maxVideos": 0
}

Input Fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
videoUrls	array	required	YouTube URLs or video IDs
preferredLanguages	array	["en"]	Language codes in order of preference
includeAutoGenerated	boolean	true	Include auto-generated captions as fallback
outputFormat	string	"text"	Output format (text, timestamped, srt, vtt, json)
includeVideoMetadata	boolean	true	Fetch video title, channel, views, etc.
translateTo	string	null	Translate to this language code
maxVideos	integer	0	Limit videos to process (0 = unlimited)

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
• VIDEO_ID (direct 11-character ID)

Output

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "success": true,
  "transcript_text": "We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I...",
  "formatted_transcript": "We're no strangers to love. You know the rules...",
  "output_format": "text",
  "language": "English",
  "language_code": "en",
  "is_auto_generated": false,
  "is_translated": false,
  "available_languages": ["en", "es", "fr", "de", "ja"],
  "word_count": 423,
  "character_count": 2156,
  "segment_count": 87,
  "duration_seconds": 212.5,
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "channel_name": "Rick Astley",
  "view_count": 1400000000,
  "thumbnail_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "error": null,
  "extraction_time_ms": 1234
}

Output Fields

Field	Description
video_id	YouTube video ID
success	Whether extraction was successful
transcript_text	Plain text transcript
formatted_transcript	Transcript in requested format
language_code	Language code of transcript
is_auto_generated	True if using YouTube's auto-generated captions
is_translated	True if transcript was translated
word_count	Number of words in transcript
segment_count	Number of caption segments
available_languages	All available transcript languages

Output Formats

Format	Description	Use Case
text	Continuous plain text	Reading, AI processing
timestamped	Text with [MM:SS] timestamps	Note taking, navigation
srt	SubRip subtitle format	Video editors, media players
vtt	WebVTT format	Web video players, HTML5
json	Detailed segments with timing	Custom processing, analysis

Language Codes

Common language codes: en, en-US, es, fr, de, it, pt, ja, ko, zh-Hans, zh-Hant, ru, ar, hi

For a full list, see YouTube's supported languages.

Error Handling

The scraper handles various error conditions gracefully:

Error Type	Description
transcripts_disabled	Video owner has disabled captions
no_transcript_found	No transcript in requested language
video_unavailable	Video is private, deleted, or region-restricted
no_transcript_available	Video has no captions at all

Limitations

• Captions Required: Cannot extract from videos without captions
• Rate Limits: YouTube may rate-limit excessive requests
• Private Videos: Cannot access private or unlisted videos without authorization
• Live Streams: May not work with ongoing live streams

Pricing

$3 per 1,000 transcripts extracted.

Examples

Extract single video transcript

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

Get Spanish transcript with translation

{
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
  "preferredLanguages": ["es"],
  "translateTo": "en"
}

Generate SRT subtitles

{
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"],
  "outputFormat": "srt"
}

Batch process without metadata

{
  "videoUrls": ["VIDEO_ID_1", "VIDEO_ID_2", "VIDEO_ID_3"],
  "includeVideoMetadata": false,
  "maxVideos": 100
}

Support

For questions or issues, contact the developer or open an issue in the repository.