Video & Audio Transcriber · Whisper Speech-to-Text, SRT & VTT

What does Video & Audio Transcriber do?

Video & Audio Transcriber turns any video, audio or podcast URL into text. Paste links from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Rumble, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Twitch and 1,800+ other sites, a podcast RSS feed, or a direct media file, and get the full transcript, timestamped segments, ready-to-save SRT and VTT subtitles and the detected language. The audio track itself is transcribed, so it works on videos that have no captions at all, and there is no API key to manage.

New to Apify? Sign up free and use the included $5 monthly platform credit to test this actor.

Key features

• 🎙️ Any video, audio or podcast URL to text: Paste links from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Rumble, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Twitch and 1,800+ other sites, a podcast RSS or Atom feed, or a direct file (mp3, mp4, wav, m4a, flac, ogg, webm, mov). The audio track is transcribed, so videos without captions work too.
• 📝 Transcript, timestamped segments, SRT and VTT: every item carries the full text, a segments array with start and end times, ready-to-save srt and vtt strings, and downloadable .srt / .vtt files in the run's key-value store. Turn on wordTimestamps to get per-word timing inside each segment.
• 🌍 99+ languages, detected automatically: the spoken language is detected per item and returned as an ISO 639-1 code, or force it with language. Set translateToEnglish to get an English transcript and English subtitles from any source language.
• 🎧 Podcast feeds expand to episodes: give it an RSS or Atom feed URL and the newest maxEpisodesPerFeed episodes are transcribed as separate rows, each with the episode title and publish date.
• 💸 Pay only for transcribed minutes: maxMinutesPerItem caps what is transcribed per URL, billedMinutes shows what each item cost, failed items are never charged, and when the run's maximum cost is reached the remaining URLs are skipped instead of failing the run. Long files are processed in chunks so an hour of audio does not take an hour.
• 🧹 Empty-field stripping: drop null, empty-string, and empty-array fields from each record before push. Smaller payloads for AI agents and dashboards that already handle missing fields gracefully.

What data can you get for each media URL?

One record per media item (podcast feeds expand to one record per episode):

• Transcript — text (full transcript), wordCount, segments ([{ start, end, text }] with second-precision timestamps, plus words when wordTimestamps is on)
• Subtitles — srt and vtt strings, and srtFileUrl / vttFileUrl download links
• Language — detected language (ISO 639-1) and task (transcribe or translate). languageProbability carries a detection confidence only when the in-container engine ran; the hosted speech API does not report one
• Source metadata — title, uploader, publishedAt, thumbnailUrl, platform, sourceType, url, inputUrl
• Billing transparency — durationSeconds (full source), transcribedSeconds (after the per-item cap), billedMinutes
• Failures — error is null on success; failed items carry a short reason and are never charged

Input

Configure the actor through the input schema in Apify Console.

Key parameters:

• mediaUrls — Video, audio, podcast-feed or direct-file URLs to transcribe (up to 50 per run). Works with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Rumble, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Twitch and 1,800+ other sites, podcast RSS/Atom feeds (newest episodes are expanded automatically) and direct media files (mp3, mp4, wav, m4a, flac, ogg, webm, mov).
• language — ISO 639-1 code of the spoken language, e.g. en, es, de, pt. Leave empty to auto-detect — 99+ languages are recognised. (default: "")
• translateToEnglish — Output an English translation of the speech instead of a transcript in the original language. Subtitles are translated too. (default: false)
• wordTimestamps — Add a words array with start/end times for every word to each segment. Useful for karaoke-style captions and precise clipping. (default: false)
• maxMinutesPerItem — Per-URL cap on how many minutes of media are transcribed and billed (max 300). Longer media is transcribed up to the cap; you pay only for transcribed minutes. Free-plan runs are additionally limited to 30 minutes of media per run in total. Runs with a cap of 30 minutes or less use 1024 MB of memory, longer caps use 2048 MB. (default: 120)
• maxEpisodesPerFeed — When a URL is a podcast RSS/Atom feed, transcribe this many of the newest episodes. Each episode becomes one output item. (default: 1)
• cookies — Contents of a cookies.txt exported from a logged-in browser session. Needed for YouTube's "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" gate and for age- or region-restricted content. Stored as a secret; leave empty for public media.
• excludeEmptyFields — Drop null, empty-string and empty-array fields from every output record to keep exports compact. (default: false)

Input examples

Basic transcription — One YouTube video, language auto-detected.

→ Full transcript, timestamped segments, SRT and VTT for the video.

{
  "mediaUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ]
}

Podcast feed, newest episodes — Transcribe the three newest episodes of a podcast, at most 60 minutes each.

→ One row per episode with title, publish date, transcript and subtitles.

{
  "mediaUrls": [
    "https://feed.syntax.fm/rss"
  ],
  "maxEpisodesPerFeed": 3,
  "maxMinutesPerItem": 60
}

Translate to English with word timing — A direct audio file, translated to English, with per-word timestamps.

→ English transcript and subtitles; every segment carries a words array.

{
  "mediaUrls": [
    "https://github.com/openai/whisper/raw/main/tests/jfk.flac"
  ],
  "translateToEnglish": true,
  "wordTimestamps": true
}

Output

Each run produces a dataset of structured transcript records. Results can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab in Apify Console.

Example transcript record

{
  "url": "https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FSI5284996555.mp3",
  "inputUrl": "https://feed.syntax.fm/rss",
  "sourceType": "podcast-episode",
  "platform": "podcast",
  "title": "1035: Why everyone is moving to Stylex?",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-02T11:00:00.000Z",
  "durationSeconds": 1596.656325,
  "transcribedSeconds": 119.1,
  "billedMinutes": 2,
  "language": "en",
  "task": "transcribe",
  "text": "Stylex. Everybody's talking about Stylex. We're going to do an episode on it. If you've ever opened up a meta property, Facebook, whatever, you'll see that their classes just have all these random cla...",
  "wordCount": 405,
  "segments": [
    {
      "start": 0.24,
      "end": 24.18,
      "text": "Stylex. Everybody's talking about Stylex. We're going to do an episode on it. If you've ever opened up a meta property, Facebook, whatever, you'll see that their classes just have all these random cla..."
    },
    {
      "start": 24.21,
      "end": 32.43,
      "text": "It's great for agents. There's some pros, the cons. We're going to go into all of it, what people are saying about it, as well as some of the alternative.  Let's get on into it. You ready, Scott?"
    },
    {
      "start": 34.65,
      "end": 56.31,
      "text": "I'm as ready as I can be, Wes, because honestly, there's a lot about Stylex I find to be fairly grotesque, but I'm keeping an open mind.  This is me keeping an open mind.  Folks, you can change and yo..."
    },
    {
      "start": 56.34,
      "end": 57.2,
      "text": "And today,"
    },
    {
      "start": 57.27,
      "end": 83.53,
      "text": "We're going to be talking about that. We're going to talk about how great it is. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But before we get into that, we are going to be doing a meetup in San Francisco, Tuesday, October 27th...."
    },
    "... 2 more items"
  ],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,327\nStylex. Everybody's talking about Stylex. We're going to do an episode on it.\n\n2\n00:00:04,327 --> 00:00:08,415\nIf you've ever opened up a meta property, Facebook, whate...",
  "vtt": "WEBVTT\n\n00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.327\nStylex. Everybody's talking about Stylex. We're going to do an episode on it.\n\n00:00:04.327 --> 00:00:08.415\nIf you've ever opened up a meta property, Facebook, w...",
  "srtFileUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/RWVAUaz4U3bnaArgy/records/001-549f63d4-fsi5284996555-mp3.srt?signature=JA2EuWWJYX0mmgPNRHMW",
  "vttFileUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/RWVAUaz4U3bnaArgy/records/001-549f63d4-fsi5284996555-mp3.vtt?signature=tYSYwVssQ3h5ON9oUnBe",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-04T06:53:39.016Z"
}

How to transcribe media URLs

1. Go to Video & Audio Transcriber in Apify Console.
2. Configure the input.
3. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
4. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Use cases

• Turn TikToks, Reels and Shorts into searchable, quotable text at scale.
• Generate SRT/VTT subtitles for repurposing clips across platforms.
• Transcribe podcast back-catalogs straight from the RSS feed for search, show notes or SEO pages.
• Feed spoken content into summarisation, RAG pipelines or trend analysis.
• Monitor what creators or competitors say on video without watching hours of footage.
• Accessibility and compliance transcripts for published media.

How much does it cost to transcribe media URLs?

Video & Audio Transcriber uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay a small fee when the run starts and then for each result that is actually produced.

• Run start: $0.01 per run
• Per minute of media transcribed: $0.03

Example costs:

• 10 minutes: $0.31
• 30 minutes: $0.91
• 60 minutes: $1.81
• 120 minutes: $3.61
• 600 minutes: $18.01

FAQ

How many media URLs can I check per run?

Up to 50 URLs per run, each transcribed up to maxMinutesPerItem minutes (default 120). Podcast feeds add maxEpisodesPerFeed episodes each, and a run delivers at most 200 items in total once feeds are expanded — the run log says so when your URLs expand past it, so split them across runs. Long media is processed in chunks, so an hour of audio does not take an hour to transcribe. Free-plan runs are limited to 30 minutes of media per run.

Can I integrate Video & Audio Transcriber with other apps?

Yes. Video & Audio Transcriber works with Apify's integrations to connect with tools like Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Slack, and more. You can also use webhooks to trigger actions when a run completes.

Can I use Video & Audio Transcriber with the Apify API?

Yes. You can start runs, manage inputs, and retrieve results programmatically through the Apify API. Client libraries are available for JavaScript, Python, and other languages.

Can I use Video & Audio Transcriber through an MCP Server?

Yes. Apify provides an MCP Server that lets AI assistants and agents call this actor directly. Use excludeEmptyFields to keep payloads manageable for LLM context windows.

Is it legal to transcribe media URLs?

This actor queries publicly available data for the media URLs you provide. You remain responsible for ensuring your use complies with applicable laws, source terms, and downstream obligations.

Your feedback

If you have questions, need a feature, or found a bug, please open an issue on the actor's page in Apify Console. Your feedback helps us improve.

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Getting started with Apify

New to Apify? Create a free account with $5 credit — no credit card required.

1. Sign up — $5 platform credit included
2. Open this actor and configure your input
3. Click Start — export results as JSON, CSV, or Excel

Need more later? See Apify pricing.

Disclaimer

This actor transcribes media from URLs you supply and stores only what its run produces. You are responsible for having the right to transcribe the content, for how you use the transcripts — in particular any personal information spoken in them — and for complying with the source platforms' terms and applicable law. Video & Audio Transcriber is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X or any other platform whose media it can read.

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