YouTube Transcript Scraper

Get the full transcript (subtitles / captions) of any public YouTube video in bulk. Paste video links, get clean plain text plus timestamped lines, ready for ChatGPT, summaries, SEO content, research, and translation.

$3 per 1,000 transcripts. You pay only for transcripts actually delivered. Videos without captions, private or deleted videos, and invalid links are never charged.

Unofficial. This independent Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by YouTube or Google.

Why choose this YouTube Transcript Scraper?

• Pay only for success. No transcript = no charge.
• Reliable. When YouTube shows a bot check, the Actor automatically retries with a fresh proxy IP.
• Bulk input. Watch links, youtu.be links, Shorts, live and embed URLs, or plain video IDs.
• Any language. Choose a preferred language, prefer human captions over auto-generated ones, or get YouTube's automatic translation.
• AI-ready output. One clean transcript text field for LLMs, plus a segments array with start time and duration for every line.
• Video details included. Title, channel, duration, views, description, thumbnail, and keywords come with every transcript.
• Right language by default. When your language is missing, it falls back to the video's original spoken language, not a random subtitle track.
• No login, no cookies, no API key.

Use cases

• Summarize videos with ChatGPT, Claude, or any LLM
• Turn videos into blog posts, newsletters, and social content
• Build RAG / knowledge bases from YouTube channels and courses
• Research competitors, podcasts, interviews, and product reviews
• Create subtitles, quotes, and searchable video archives
• Analyze keywords and topics across many videos

Quick start

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID"
  ],
  "language": "en",
  "includeTimestamps": true
}

Input

Field	Default	Description
videos	-	YouTube URLs or 11-character video IDs, one per line
language	en	Preferred transcript language code (en, hi, es, de, ...)
preferManualCaptions	true	Prefer creator-uploaded captions over auto-generated
translateIfMissing	false	Return YouTube's automatic translation when the language is missing
includeTimestamps	true	Add timestamped segments
maxConcurrency	5	Videos processed in parallel
maxRetries	6	Fresh-IP retries when YouTube asks for a bot check
proxyConfiguration	Apify Proxy	Proxy settings

If the preferred language is not available and translation is off, the best available transcript is returned and requestedLanguageFound is false.

Output

{
  "status": "success",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video)",
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "durationSeconds": 213,
  "viewCount": 1700000000,
  "description": "The official video for Never Gonna Give You Up ...",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "keywords": ["rick astley", "never gonna give you up"],
  "language": "en",
  "languageName": "English",
  "isAutoGenerated": false,
  "isTranslated": false,
  "requestedLanguageFound": true,
  "availableLanguages": [{ "code": "en", "name": "English", "isAutoGenerated": false }],
  "transcript": "We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I ...",
  "wordCount": 402,
  "segmentCount": 61,
  "segments": [{ "start": 18.64, "duration": 3.24, "text": "We're no strangers to love" }]
}

Videos that cannot be delivered are listed with status set to no_captions, unavailable, invalid_input, or error, plus a short explanation. These rows are not charged.

Pricing

• $3 per 1,000 delivered transcripts (transcript event)
• A tiny Actor-start fee
• No charge for videos without captions, unavailable videos, invalid links, or failures

FAQ

Does it work for videos without subtitles? Only videos with captions (human or auto-generated) have a transcript. Most spoken videos have auto-generated captions. Videos without any captions are returned as no_captions and not charged.

Can I get transcripts in Hindi or other languages? Yes. Set language to the code you need. Enable translateIfMissing to get YouTube's automatic translation when that language does not exist.

Can I use it with n8n, Make, Zapier or the API? Yes. Run it through the Apify API or integrations and read the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Responsible use

Use transcripts in line with YouTube's terms, copyright law, and the creator's rights. Do not republish other creators' content without permission.