Facebook Video Transcript Scraper · videos, Reels, Watch

Facebook Video Transcript Scraper turns public Facebook videos, Reels and Watch links into full text transcripts. No API key, no login, no browser extension. Paste links, click Start, download the transcripts as JSON, CSV or Excel — or call it from the Apify API.

Facebook videos sometimes carry captions, but most Reels don't. This Actor uses Facebook's captions when they exist (fast, cheap) and transcribes the audio with Whisper large-v3-turbo AI when they don't — so you get text for every spoken-word video, not just the captioned ones. Every result passes a quality gate: empty, truncated or garbage transcripts are reported as failures and never charged.

What can this Facebook transcript scraper do?

• 📝 Full transcript of any public Facebook video — page videos, Reels, Watch and fb.watch short links
• 🤖 AI fallback built in — no captions? The audio is transcribed automatically, no API key needed
• 🌍 Any spoken language — English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi and 90+ more (auto-detected, or set a language hint)
• 🎬 SRT / VTT subtitle files — optional, free, with timestamps
• ✅ Quality-gated, pay only for good results — failures are logged with a reason (run log + RUN_REPORT) and not charged
• ⚙️ Apify platform features — API access, scheduling, webhooks, integrations (Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets), MCP for AI agents

How to get a transcript from a Facebook video

1. Click Try for free and open the Input tab.
2. Paste one or more public Facebook video / Reel / Watch links into Video URLs (one per line).
3. Optional: set Spoken language (e.g. en, es, zh) to improve accuracy on short clips, and pick Subtitle files if you need SRT/VTT.
4. Click Start and wait — captioned videos take seconds, AI transcription takes a little longer.
5. Open the Output tab and export the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML) or fetch it through the API.

Supported Facebook links

Link type	Example
Watch	https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153231379946729
Page video	https://www.facebook.com/<page>/videos/<id>/
Reel	https://www.facebook.com/reel/<id>
Short link	https://fb.watch/<code>/

Only publicly viewable videos work. Private groups and login-only content are skipped and not charged.

How much does it cost to transcribe Facebook videos?

Pay per event — you pay only for successful results, platform usage is included.

Event	Price	When
Caption transcript	$0.005 per video	Facebook already has captions
AI transcript	$0.03 per video + $0.01 per started audio minute	No captions, AI transcription succeeded
Bring your own Groq key	$0.01 per AI video, no per-minute fee	You paste your own free key from console.groq.com
Actor start	$0.00005	Tiny platform start fee

Examples: 100 captioned videos ≈ $0.50. One 90-second Reel without captions = $0.03 + 2 × $0.01 = $0.05. The same Reel with your own Groq key = $0.01. Set Max minutes per video (default 60) to cap cost on long videos. Failed or rejected results cost nothing.

Input

Field	Description
videoUrls	Facebook video / Reel / Watch links (other platforms also accepted)
aiTranscription	Use AI when no captions (default on)
languageHint	Spoken language code (e.g. en, zh, ja) — improves accuracy on short clips
maxMinutes	Skip AI for videos longer than this
groqApiKey	Optional: your own key (cheaper)
subtitleFormats	Optional: also return srt / vtt subtitle files with timestamps (free)
preferredLanguages	Caption track priority

Example input:

{
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153231379946729"],
  "aiTranscription": true,
  "languageHint": "en",
  "subtitleFormats": ["srt"]
}

Output example

{
  "platform": "facebook",
  "id": "10153231379946729",
  "url": "https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153231379946729",
  "title": "How to Share With Just Friends",
  "author": "Facebook",
  "duration": 91,
  "language": "auto",
  "source": "ai:groq-whisper-turbo",
  "charCount": 667,
  "aiMinutes": 2,
  "transcript": "..."
}

source tells you where the text came from: caption:manual, caption:auto or ai:groq-whisper-turbo.

Subtitle files (SRT / VTT) — free add-on

Pick Subtitle files = srt and/or vtt and each result also carries ready-to-use subtitles:

{
  "segments": [{"start": 0.12, "end": 2.0, "text": "Hi everyone, welcome back"}],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,000\nHi everyone, welcome back\n\n",
  "vtt": "WEBVTT\n\n00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:02.000\nHi everyone, welcome back\n\n"
}

Timestamps come from Facebook's caption file when the video has one, or from the AI transcription otherwise. If a source gives no timing information, the transcript is still delivered and a subtitleNote explains why. Leave the field empty and the output stays plain.

Use cases

• Competitor & page research — turn a brand's videos and Reels into searchable text
• Ad-creative analysis — extract hooks, scripts and calls to action from video ads
• AI pipelines — feed RAG, summarization, sentiment and LLM agents with clean transcripts
• Subtitling, translation, accessibility — SRT/VTT with timestamps in one run
• Social listening — monitor what is being said in public video content

Related transcript Actors

All four share the same quality gate (no charge for junk) and a similar JSON output — pick the one built for your source:

Actor	Best for
Facebook Video Transcript (this one)	Facebook videos, Reels, Watch, fb.watch
TikTok Transcript Scraper	TikTok videos — reads TikTok's own captions ($0.002), AI when there are none
YouTube Transcript Scraper · Chinese-first	YouTube videos, channels, playlists — captions in any language, Traditional/Simplified Chinese first
Any Video to Transcript (AI)	Mixed lists: X/Twitter, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Reddit, Bilibili and 1,000+ sites

FAQ

Do I need a Facebook account, cookies or an API key?

No. The Actor works on publicly viewable videos without login. An API key is not required either — AI transcription is built in. A Groq key is optional and only makes the AI path cheaper.

What happens if the video has no captions?

If AI transcription is on (default), the audio is transcribed with Whisper large-v3-turbo and you're charged the AI price. If you turn it off, videos without captions are reported as failures in the run log and not charged.

Which languages are supported?

Whisper handles 90+ spoken languages and auto-detects them. For short clips, setting Spoken language (languageHint) improves accuracy.

Why did some videos fail?

Typical reasons: the video is private or login-only, it was deleted, it has no speech (music only), or Facebook blocked the request. Every failure is classified (proxy / rate-limit / blocked / network / other) in the run log and the RUN_REPORT record of the run's key-value store, and failures are never charged. Keep Apify Proxy enabled (default).

Can I get SRT or VTT subtitles?

Yes — choose srt and/or vtt in Subtitle files. It's free.

Can I use it from code or an AI agent?

Yes. Use the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items), the Python/JavaScript clients, integrations like Make, Zapier and n8n, or the Apify MCP server so AI agents can call it as a tool.

Is it legal to scrape Facebook video transcripts?

This Actor only reads publicly available content. You are responsible for how you use the data — respect copyright, Facebook's terms and privacy laws such as GDPR, especially if transcripts contain personal data. If unsure, consult a lawyer.

Something doesn't work — how do I get help?

Open an issue in the Issues tab with the run link and the video URL. We read every issue. If the Actor saved you time, a short review helps other users find it.