YouTube Transcript & Subtitle Scraper

Extract complete public YouTube captions from video URLs or IDs. Get clean plain text, timestamped segments, language metadata, and optional SRT subtitles in one dataset row per video.

Use the Actor for AI and RAG pipelines, research, accessibility workflows, content analysis, subtitle editing, video search, and knowledge-base ingestion.

Features

• Batch up to 50 unique YouTube videos per run
• Watch, Shorts, youtu.be, embed, live URLs, and bare video IDs
• Ordered preferred languages and configurable fallback behavior
• Manual-first, auto-generated-first, either, or strict caption-type selection
• Optional translation through YouTube's available translation tracks
• Plain text, timestamped segments, and valid SRT output
• No YouTube API key, account cookies, or login required
• Failed, unavailable, and no-caption videos are saved as error rows but do not trigger the transcript result charge

Example input

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7lc1UVf-VE",
    "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "preferredLanguages": ["en", "hi"],
  "captionPreference": "MANUAL_FIRST",
  "languageFallback": "FIRST_AVAILABLE",
  "translateTo": "",
  "includeText": true,
  "includeSegments": true,
  "includeSrt": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}

Output

Successful rows contain the normalized video URL, selected and original language codes, caption type, translation status, available public tracks, full text, segment count, optional timing segments, and optional SRT.

Error rows include a stable video ID when available plus a readable error. Only rows with status equal to ok trigger the paid transcript-result event.

Caption selection

The Actor checks preferred language codes from left to right. MANUAL_FIRST favors creator-provided captions, while AUTO_FIRST favors YouTube-generated captions. FIRST_AVAILABLE returns another public track when the requested languages are unavailable. Choose NONE when language matching must be strict.

Proxy reliability

YouTube frequently blocks public cloud IPs. The default residential proxy improves reliability and rotates requests. The successful-transcript event price is set to cover normal platform and proxy usage. For small tests you can disable the proxy, but direct cloud requests may fail.

Pricing behavior

The Actor charges only after a complete, non-empty transcript is successfully saved. Invalid URLs, unavailable videos, disabled captions, language mismatches, blocks, and other failures do not trigger the transcript result event.

Responsible use

This Actor reads captions that YouTube makes publicly accessible. It does not download video or audio and does not bypass private, paid, age-restricted, or members-only access. Follow YouTube's terms, copyright rules, and applicable law when storing or reusing transcript content. This Actor is independent of YouTube and Google.