YouTube Transcript Scraper Pro (Captions + AI Fallback)

YouTube Transcript Scraper — Captions + AI Speech-to-Text

Extract transcripts from any YouTube video — even when captions don't exist.

Give it a single video, a playlist, or a whole channel. You get each video's transcript in JSON, plain text, SRT, VTT, or an LLM-ready format. When a video has no captions, turn on AI transcription and the built-in speech-to-text model transcribes the audio — no API key, no extra setup. You pay per transcript, not per minute of server time.

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Quick start

1. Click Try for free.

2. Paste one or more YouTube URLs into YouTube URLs:

   • Single video: youtube.com/watch?v=... or youtu.be/...
   • Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=...
   • Channel: youtube.com/@channelname

   Playlists and channels return 10 videos by default — raise Max videos per playlist/channel for more.

3. Pick your Output formats. Not sure? Plain Text is the words as one block.

4. AI transcription is off by default. Videos without native captions are reported with NO_CAPTIONS_AVAILABLE unless you turn on Enable AI transcription. When you do, set Max AI minutes per run before processing an unknown playlist or channel.

5. Click Start, then download results from the Dataset tab as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.

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How it works

1. Expand — every URL becomes the videos it names. A channel URL is read from its videos tab, newest first. A video named more than once — as a youtu.be link and in a playlist, say — is transcribed and charged once.
2. Captions — for each video, the scraper looks for a caption track in your languages, in order: manual captions first (unless you chose auto-generated only), then auto-generated. The first track that downloads is used.
3. Machine translation (optional, on by default) — with Machine-translate captions into your language on, a video that has captions only in other languages has them machine-translated into your first requested language, keeping every timestamp and charged as a normal transcript. Items carry is_machine_translated: true and translated_from.
4. Original-language fallback (optional) — with Use captions in any available language on, a video with no track in your languages delivers its track in the language it was spoken in, charged as a normal transcript.
5. AI transcription (optional) — the audio of a video with no captions at all is transcribed. A video that has captions only in other languages, when translation and the original-language fallback are both off, is returned as LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND with the languages it has.

A video that fails never stops the run: it becomes a dataset item with an error_code, and the rest of the batch continues.

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What you get

Each dataset item is one video.

Video metadata

Field	Type	Description
metadata.id	string	YouTube video ID
metadata.title	string	Video title
metadata.url	string	Canonical watch URL
metadata.description	string	Full video description
metadata.duration	number	Duration in seconds
metadata.view_count	number	Total views
metadata.like_count	number	Total likes
metadata.channel	string	Channel display name
metadata.channel_id	string	Channel ID (UC-prefixed)
metadata.channel_url	string	Channel URL
metadata.thumbnail	string	Highest-resolution thumbnail URL
metadata.upload_date	string	Upload date (YYYYMMDD)
metadata.tags	array	Creator-set tags
metadata.categories	array	YouTube categories

Transcript fields

A field appears only on the items it applies to — a format you did not request is absent, not empty.

Field	Type	Description
language	string	Language code of the transcript (e.g. en, zh-TW)
is_auto_generated	boolean	true if YouTube auto-generated the captions
is_ai_generated	boolean	true if the built-in AI model transcribed the audio
is_language_fallback	boolean	true when the video's original-language track was delivered instead of your languages
is_machine_translated	boolean	true when the transcript was machine-translated into your language from the video's original captions
translated_from	string	Language code of the original captions a machine-translated transcript came from
requested_languages	array	The languages you asked for, on language-fallback and machine-translated items
transcript_json	array	Timestamped segments [{start, end, text}]. With wordLevel: true, each segment also has words: [{start, end, text}] — end is estimated for native captions, exact for AI transcriptions
transcript_text	string	Plain text transcript
transcript_llm	string	Text with [Music], (laughter) and similar tokens stripped — ready for AI pipelines
transcript_srt	string	SRT subtitles
transcript_vtt	string	WebVTT subtitles
language_probability	number	The AI model's confidence in the language it detected (0–1). AI transcription only; absent when you forced the language
language_was_forced	boolean	true when forceTranscriptionLanguage was set. AI transcription only
ai_duration_charged_min	number	AI minutes charged for this video. AI transcription only
ai_speech_duration_sec	number	Speech detected in the audio, in seconds. AI transcription only

For a very long transcript, per-word timings are left out, and then the timestamped segments, so the item stays within the platform's size limit for one dataset item. The text formats are always kept.

Error items

Field	Type	Description
error_code	string	What went wrong — see the table below
error	string	What happened and what to do about it
retryable	string	Whether running the video again can help: yes, no or conditional
url	string	The URL as you gave it, when no metadata could be read
available_languages	array	The caption languages the video does have, on LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND and CAPTION_FETCH_FAILED items

Error items are never charged.

Error code	Meaning	Retryable
INVALID_URL	The URL is not a YouTube video, playlist or channel	no
RUN_VIDEO_LIMIT_REACHED	The run already took 500 videos, the most one run transcribes	yes
URL_EXPANSION_FAILED	A playlist or channel could not be listed	yes
AGE_RESTRICTED	The video requires age verification	no
PRIVATE_OR_UNAVAILABLE	The video is private, removed or blocked in the region	no
LIVE_VIDEO	Live streams cannot be transcribed until they are archived	conditional
BOT_DETECTION	YouTube asked for human verification	yes
EXTRACTION_ERROR	The video's information could not be read	yes
CAPTION_FETCH_FAILED	A caption track exists but could not be downloaded	yes
LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND	Captions exist, but not in your languages, and translation, the original-language fallback and AI are all off (or translation failed)	no
NO_CAPTIONS_AVAILABLE	The video has no captions and AI transcription is off	no
CAPTIONS_NOT_READY	The video's captions are listed but not generated yet — typical for a recent upload. Run it again later, or enable AI fallback	yes
AI_FALLBACK_SKIPPED_TOO_LONG	The video is longer than 120 minutes, or than Skip AI for long videos	no
AI_MINUTES_LIMIT_REACHED	The run's Max AI minutes budget would be exceeded	conditional
AI_TRANSCRIPTION_FAILED	The audio could not be downloaded or transcribed	yes

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Output examples

Native captions

{
  "metadata": {
    "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "channel": "Rick Astley",
    "duration": 213,
    "upload_date": "20091025"
  },
  "language": "en",
  "is_auto_generated": false,
  "is_ai_generated": false,
  "transcript_json": [
    { "start": 18.5, "end": 21.0, "text": "We're no strangers to love" },
    { "start": 21.0, "end": 24.5, "text": "You know the rules and so do I" }
  ],
  "transcript_text": "We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I ..."
}

AI transcription

{
  "metadata": { "id": "jNQXAC9IVRw", "title": "Me at the zoo", "duration": 19 },
  "language": "en",
  "language_probability": 0.9996,
  "language_was_forced": false,
  "is_auto_generated": false,
  "is_ai_generated": true,
  "transcript_text": "Alright, so here we are, one of the elephants. ...",
  "ai_duration_charged_min": 1,
  "ai_speech_duration_sec": 19
}

Error

{
  "error_code": "LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND",
  "error": "Captions exist, but not in your requested language. Check available_languages and adjust Caption languages.",
  "metadata": { "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ", "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up" },
  "available_languages": ["en", "es", "fr"],
  "retryable": "no"
}

---

Pricing

Pay per event, with no charge for server time:

• per transcript delivered from captions;
• per minute of video transcribed by AI, billed on the video's full length, rounded up to the minute;
• a start fee per run.

The prices for your plan are on the Pricing page; higher Apify plans pay less per event. There is no separate proxy charge on your account.

Keeping AI cost predictable

• Max AI minutes per run caps the AI minutes a run may use (default 30, up to 600; 0 means the maximum, 600). A video that would exceed it is reported as AI_MINUTES_LIMIT_REACHED.
• Skip AI for long videos leaves out videos longer than the minutes you set. Videos over 120 minutes are always skipped, whatever you set here.
• Captions are always tried first. AI only runs on videos with no captions in any language; a video captioned in other languages is machine-translated into your language (when translation is on, the default) or returned as LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND, never AI-transcribed.

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Advanced options

Option	UI label	Default	What it does
startUrls	YouTube URLs	—	Videos, playlists and channels
maxResults	Max videos per playlist/channel	10	Videos taken from each playlist or channel; single videos ignore it. One run transcribes at most 500 videos; each one past that is returned as RUN_VIDEO_LIMIT_REACHED
languages	Caption languages	["en"]	Caption languages in order of preference
subType	Caption source	"both"	"manual", "auto", or "both" (manual first)
outputFormats	Output formats	json, text, llm	Which transcript formats each item carries
wordLevel	Word-level timestamps	false	Per-word timings inside transcript_json
enableAiFallback	Enable AI transcription	false	Transcribe videos that have no captions
forceTranscriptionLanguage	AI transcription language	auto-detect	The language the AI transcribes in, instead of the one it detects in the audio
maxAiMinutes	Max AI minutes per run	30	AI minute budget for the run, up to 600; 0 means the maximum (600)
skipAiFallbackIfLongerThan	Skip AI for long videos (minutes)	0 (off)	Skip AI for videos longer than this; videos over 120 minutes are skipped regardless
useAnyAvailableCaptionLanguage	Use captions in any available language	false	Deliver the video's original-language captions when none match your languages

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Integration examples

Python — Apify client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("codepoetry/youtube-transcript-ai-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}],
        "languages": ["en"],
        "outputFormats": ["json", "llm"],
    }
)

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if "error_code" in item:
        print(item["error_code"], item["error"])
        continue
    print(item["metadata"]["title"], item["transcript_llm"][:200])

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('codepoetry/youtube-transcript-ai-scraper').call({
    startUrls: [{ url: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ' }],
    languages: ['en'],
    outputFormats: ['json', 'llm'],
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
for (const item of items) {
    if (item.error_code) continue;
    console.log(item.metadata.title, item.transcript_llm.slice(0, 200));
}

LangChain / RAG

from apify_client import ApifyClient
from langchain.docstore.document import Document

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("codepoetry/youtube-transcript-ai-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/@channelname"}],
        "outputFormats": ["llm"],
        "maxResults": 50,
    }
)

docs = [
    Document(
        page_content=item["transcript_llm"],
        metadata={"source": item["metadata"]["url"], "title": item["metadata"]["title"]},
    )
    for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items()
    if "transcript_llm" in item
]

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Frequently asked questions

What happens if a video has no captions?

With AI transcription off, the video is reported with NO_CAPTIONS_AVAILABLE. Turn on Enable AI transcription and its audio is transcribed instead.

A video with captions only in other languages is never transcribed by AI: the model transcribes the language the video is spoken in, not the one you asked for. Instead, with Machine-translate captions into your language on (the default), its captions are machine-translated into your language, timestamps kept. With translation off and no transcript in your languages deliverable, it is reported with LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND and the languages it has in available_languages — add one of those, turn translation back on, or turn on Use captions in any available language to receive its original-language track.

Does it work for playlists, channels and Shorts?

Yes. A playlist or channel is expanded into its videos (use Max videos per playlist/channel to cap it), and a Shorts URL is treated like any other video.

Which languages are supported?

Native captions: any language YouTube offers captions in. AI transcription: 99 languages.

Does it translate transcripts?

No. Captions are returned in the language the video has them in. An original-language fallback is in the language spoken, and an AI transcription is in the language the model hears (or the one you set in AI transcription language).

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Changelog

2026-10-10

• A run stopped early — by you, or when its time limit is reached — now saves every result it has already collected, instead of returning an empty dataset.
• A video whose captions are listed but not generated yet (typical for a recent upload) is now returned as CAPTIONS_NOT_READY with a retry hint, or transcribed with AI when AI fallback is on — instead of being reported as LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND.
• One unreadable caption track no longer fails the whole run; that video comes back as an error item and the rest of the run completes.

Notes

This is an unofficial scraper. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, sponsored by or endorsed by YouTube or Google, and those names are used only to say which public website it reads.