# YouTube Playlist Transcript Scraper ⚡ Bulk, No API Key (`cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader`) Actor

Download every transcript from any YouTube playlist. Pass playlist URLs or IDs; get subtitles as plain text or timestamped segments, plus title, duration and view count per video, as JSON or CSV. Built for courses, tutorials and conference tracks. No API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader.md
- **Developed by:** [Yaniv van der Stigchel](https://apify.com/cleanfeed) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Agents, Videos
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 1 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 transcript returneds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## YouTube Playlist Transcript Scraper — whole playlists, one run

Give it a playlist. Get back the transcript of every video in it, in playlist
order. Built for courses, tutorial series and conference tracks.

### Bulk transcripts from a YouTube playlist

- Download all transcripts from a YouTube playlist
- Export a full course playlist to JSON or CSV
- Get subtitles for every video in a tutorial series
- Build a RAG dataset from a conference playlist
- Scrape playlist captions without an API key

Pass several playlists at once. Each row is tagged with its source playlist.

### Why this one works

Many transcript tools broke when YouTube started requiring proof-of-origin
tokens on caption URLs — they return empty results or fail silently. This
scraper uses a fallback ladder of client identities, retries on a fresh IP when
an exit node is blocked, and reports which route served each result.

### You only pay for transcripts

| `reason` | Meaning | Charged |
|---|---|---|
| — (`ok: true`) | Transcript returned | Yes |
| `no-captions` | Video is fine, has no captions | No |
| `unavailable` | Deleted, private, or region-locked | No |
| `blocked` | Extraction route failed | No |

Long-running playlists accumulate dead and caption-less videos. Those cost you
nothing.

### Input

| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `playlists` | yes | Playlist URLs or IDs |
| `maxVideosPerPlaylist` | no | Playlist order. Default 100. Your cost ceiling. |
| `language` | no | Two-letter code. Default `en`. |
| `includeSegments` | no | Add timestamps. Default `false`. |
| `maxConcurrency` | no | 1–25. Default 10. |

Accepts `youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...`, a watch URL carrying a `list` param,
or a bare `PL...` / `UU...` id.

### Example input

```json
{
  "playlists": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"],
  "maxVideosPerPlaylist": 200,
  "language": "en"
}
```

### Output

Every row has the same fields whether it succeeded or failed, so you can
select columns without branching. Failed rows are never charged.

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `sourcePlaylist` | string | The playlist input this row came from. |
| `success` | boolean | True when a transcript was returned. Failed rows are never charged. |
| `videoId` | string | YouTube's 11-character video identifier. |
| `videoUrl` | string | Canonical watch URL for the video. |
| `title` | string | The video's title as published. |
| `channel` | string | Display name of the channel that published the video. |
| `channelId` | string | YouTube channel identifier, stable across renames. |
| `durationSeconds` | number | Length of the video in seconds. |
| `viewCount` | integer | Views at the time of the run. |
| `language` | string | BCP-47 code of the caption track returned. |
| `isAutoGenerated` | boolean | True when the captions were machine-generated rather than human-authored. |
| `segmentCount` | integer | Number of timed segments in the transcript. |
| `fullText` | string | The complete transcript as one plain-text string. Null on failure. |
| `segments` | array | Timestamped transcript segments. Only present when includeSegments is enabled. |
| `errorCode` | string | Machine-readable failure reason. Null on success. |
| `errorMessage` | string | Human-readable explanation of the failure. Null on success. |

#### Example — success

```json
{
  "sourcePlaylist": "PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3ToM6LftOCAY1H",
  "success": true,
  "videoId": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "title": "Me at the zoo",
  "channel": "jawed",
  "channelId": "UC4QobU6STFB0P71PMvOGN5A",
  "viewCount": 358194821,
  "durationSeconds": 19,
  "language": "en",
  "isAutoGenerated": false,
  "segmentCount": 3,
  "fullText": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks.",
  "errorCode": null,
  "errorMessage": null,
  "segments": [
    {
      "start": 0.84,
      "duration": 3.2,
      "text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants."
    },
    {
      "start": 4.04,
      "duration": 3.6,
      "text": "The cool thing about these guys is that they have"
    },
    {
      "start": 7.64,
      "duration": 2.9,
      "text": "really, really, really long trunks."
    }
  ]
}
```

#### Example — failure

A failure carries the same fields, so nothing downstream has to branch.

```json
{
  "sourcePlaylist": "PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3ToM6LftOCAY1H",
  "success": false,
  "videoId": "s1CFmzZzO4c",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CFmzZzO4c",
  "title": "Board meeting recording",
  "channel": "Example Corp",
  "channelId": "UCzzz999",
  "viewCount": 412,
  "durationSeconds": 3120,
  "language": null,
  "isAutoGenerated": null,
  "segmentCount": null,
  "fullText": null,
  "errorCode": "no-captions",
  "errorMessage": "This video has no captions published, so there is no transcript to return."
}
```

#### Error codes

- `no-captions`
- `unavailable`
- `blocked`
- `empty-transcript`
- `unparseable-input`
- `error`
- `unparseable-playlist`
- `playlist-blocked`

### Use it for

- **Course transcripts** — every lesson in a curriculum playlist, as plain text
- **Conference talk transcripts** — a whole conference track in one run
- **Lecture transcripts** — university series and seminar playlists
- **Podcast transcripts** — YouTube-hosted podcast back catalogues
- **Seminar and webinar series transcripts** — a full recorded programme
- RAG and embedding pipelines over a curated series
- Study notes, summaries and training datasets

### Related actors

| If you need | Use |
|---|---|
| Specific videos you already have URLs for | [YouTube Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-transcript-downloader) |
| Every video on a channel | [YouTube Channel Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-channel-transcript-downloader) |
| A channel's Shorts | [YouTube Shorts Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-shorts-transcript-downloader) |
| Videos from a keyword search | [YouTube Search to Transcripts](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-search-transcript-downloader) |
| Comments instead of the spoken text | [YouTube Comments Scraper](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-comments-downloader) |

### Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

This Actor is callable as a tool through the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp), so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code can run it directly.

Add the server to your MCP client:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Then ask for what you want in plain language — for example *“transcribe this YouTube playlist”* — and the agent calls `cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader` with the right input. Every output field is described in the dataset schema, so the agent knows what it is getting back before it runs anything.

### Call it from code

#### Python

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")

run = client.actor("cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader").call(run_input={
    "playlists": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"],
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if item["success"]:
        print(item)
```

#### JavaScript

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

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });

const run = await client.actor('cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader').call({
    playlists: ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"],
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.filter((i) => i.success));
```

#### cURL

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cleanfeed~youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"playlists": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"]}'
```

### Limitations

- **A residential proxy is required.** YouTube serves `playabilityStatus: ERROR` to datacenter IP ranges while the identical request succeeds from a home connection — measured 12/12 success on residential against 0/12 on a cloud host with no proxy, and 7/12 through a datacenter proxy. The input defaults to residential; changing it will break most runs. Full method and per-environment figures are published in the [reliability benchmark](https://publicapidata.com/benchmarks/youtube-transcript-reliability/).
- **Not every video has captions.** Videos with captions disabled return `errorCode: no-captions` and are never charged. This is a property of the video, not a failure of the run.
- **The playlist must be public.** Private and unlisted playlists return no videos.
- Some playlist pages list zero videos through the playlist endpoint even though they render in a browser; the run reports `0 videos found` rather than failing silently.

### FAQ

#### Do I need a YouTube API key?

No key, no OAuth and no quota.

#### What playlist formats are accepted?

A playlist URL, a bare `PL...` id, or a watch URL carrying a `&list=` parameter.

#### Can I transcribe a whole channel instead?

Yes — use [YouTube Channel Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/cleanfeed/youtube-channel-transcript-downloader).

#### What if some videos in the playlist have no captions?

Those rows return `errorCode: no-captions` and are not charged. The rest of the playlist still returns normally.

#### Is this suitable for courses and conference tracks?

That is the main use case. One run returns the whole series as text, with optional timestamps so you can cite the moment a point was made.

### Notes

Only publicly available caption data is collected. No login, no personal data,
no video downloads.

# Actor input Schema

## `playlists` (type: `array`):

YouTube playlists to transcribe in full: playlist URLs or bare PL... IDs. A watch URL carrying a \&list= parameter also works. For an entire channel use cleanfeed/youtube-channel-transcript-downloader.

## `maxVideosPerPlaylist` (type: `integer`):

In playlist order. You are charged per transcript returned, so this is your cost ceiling.

## `language` (type: `string`):

Two-letter code (en, nl, de, es...). Falls back to auto-generated captions in that language, then to any available track.

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

Adds timed segments alongside plain text. Off by default — playlist runs return a lot of data.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Parallel requests. Higher is faster; lower is gentler.

## `proxy` (type: `object`):

YouTube blocks datacenter IPs. Residential proxy is required for reliable results.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "playlists": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"
  ],
  "maxVideosPerPlaylist": 100,
  "language": "en",
  "includeSegments": false,
  "maxConcurrency": 10,
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `transcripts` (type: `string`):

One row per video, tagged with its source playlist. Successful rows include plain text, detected language and whether captions were auto-generated. Failed rows carry a reason: no-captions, unavailable, blocked, or empty-transcript.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Playlists processed, videos found, transcripts delivered, and counts per failure type.

# 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 = {
    "playlists": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"
    ],
    "proxy": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader").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 = {
    "playlists": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"],
    "proxy": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader").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 '{
  "playlists": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-osiE80TeTt2d9bfVyTiXJA-UTHn6WwU"
  ],
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}' |
apify call cleanfeed/youtube-playlist-transcript-downloader --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/USBmMumzMEx2eKaXn/builds/resIob1nzmu5LIE1M/openapi.json