YouTube Subtitle Generator - Auto Transcribe & Translate

🚀 YouTube video subtitle generation and translation Apify Actor using OpenAI's AI models for speech recognition and translation.

⚠️ IMPORTANT LIMITATION

YouTube Cookies expire very quickly (usually within minutes). This Actor requires fresh YouTube cookies for each run, making it NOT suitable for automated workflows or scheduled runs. This is best used for manual, on-demand subtitle generation where you can provide fresh cookies each time.

✨ Core Features

• Automatic Subtitle Generation - Speech recognition using OpenAI's AI models
• Translation - GPT-4o supports translation to 15+ languages
• Batch Processing - Generates results every 2 minutes for efficient processing
• Multiple Output Formats - SRT subtitle files, TXT plain text, JSON structured data
• Rich Metadata - Complete video information including title, channel, view count

🚀 Quick Start

1. Go to Apify Console
2. Search for "YouTube Subtitle Generator"
3. Input configuration:
   • YouTube URL
   • OpenAI API Key
   • YouTube Cookies (Netscape format)
   • Select source and target languages
4. Click "Start" to begin processing

📋 Input Parameters

Required

Parameter	Description
videoUrl	YouTube video URL
openaiApiKey	Your OpenAI API key
youtubeCookies	YouTube cookies in Netscape format

Optional

Parameter	Default	Description
sourceLanguage	auto	Source language (auto-detect)
targetLanguage	en	Target translation language
gptModel	gpt-4o	GPT model for translation

📤 Output Data

Batch Results

Every 2 minutes of video generates a batch result with:

• Time range processed
• Video information
• Transcription preview
• Processing status

Final Result

Complete processing delivers:

• Full SRT subtitle files (original and translated)
• Plain text transcripts
• JSON structured data
• Complete video metadata
• Processing statistics

🌍 Supported Languages

• Auto-detection for source language
• 15+ languages for translation including:
  • English, Chinese (Traditional/Simplified)
  • Japanese, Korean
  • Spanish, French, German, Italian
  • Portuguese, Russian, Arabic
  • Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese

💰 Billing

Video Duration	Results Generated
2 minutes	2
5 minutes	4
10 minutes	6
30 minutes	16

Billing based on number of results in Dataset

📝 Important Notes

⚠️ YouTube Cookies - Critical Limitations

• EXPIRES VERY QUICKLY - Usually within minutes
• NOT SUITABLE FOR AUTOMATION - Cannot be used for scheduled or recurring runs
• MANUAL REFRESH REQUIRED - Must provide fresh cookies for each execution
• Must be in Netscape format (starts with # Netscape HTTP Cookie File)
• Use browser extensions (like "Get cookies.txt LOCALLY") to export
• This is a YouTube limitation, not an Actor issue

Best Practices

• Videos under 30 minutes recommended
• Ensure stable internet connection
• Check API quotas before processing long videos

🐛 Troubleshooting

Video won't download?

• Verify YouTube Cookies are fresh
• Check if video is publicly available

No transcription output?

• Confirm OpenAI API key is valid
• Check API usage limits

Translation not working?

• Ensure source and target languages are different
• Verify GPT-4o model access