YouTube Transcript & Caption Extractor

Extract full transcripts and subtitles from YouTube videos in bulk. Supports auto-generated captions, 100+ languages, playlists, channels, and RAG-ready chunking. Perfect for LLM pipelines, content repurposing, and research. $0.01/video.

---

⚡ Quick start

Paste any YouTube URL and click Start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxxx

Returns a clean transcript ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or your RAG vector store.

---

Why use this actor?

Feature	This actor	Typical free alternatives
Batch processing	✅ Up to 100 videos per run	❌ 1 video at a time
Playlist support	✅ Full playlist extraction	❌ Manual URL list only
Channel support	✅ Scrape entire channels	❌ Not supported
Video metadata	✅ Title, views, upload date (yt-dlp)	❌ Transcript only
RAG chunking	✅ Word-count based chunks	❌ Not supported
Languages	✅ 100+ languages	✅
Auto-generated	✅	✅

---

Use cases

• LLM / RAG pipelines — Feed YouTube lectures, tutorials, or conference talks into Claude, GPT, or vector databases
• Content repurposing — Turn video scripts into blog posts, newsletters, or summaries
• Subtitles download — Extract subtitles in any available language
• Competitive research — Batch-extract transcripts from competitor YouTube channels
• Academic research — Process hundreds of talks or interviews at once
• Training data — Build high-quality AI training datasets from YouTube content
• Podcast transcription — Extract transcripts from YouTube-hosted podcasts

---

Output fields

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "channel": "Rick Astley",
  "upload_date": "2009-10-25",
  "view_count": 1500000000,
  "duration_secs": 212,
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "is_generated": false,
  "available_languages": ["en", "de", "ja", "pt-BR"],
  "transcript": "We're no strangers to love...",
  "word_count": 312,
  "segment_count": 61,
  "fetched_at": "2026-08-28T09:47:46Z"
}

---

Output formats

Format	Best for
full_text	LLM prompts, copy-paste, summaries
timestamped	Navigation, [0:12] text per line format
segments	Array of {start, duration, text} — custom chunking
rag_chunks	Pre-chunked by word count for vector databases

---

Input options

Field	Default	Description
videoUrls	—	YouTube URLs, video IDs, playlist URLs, or channel URLs
languages	["en"]	Preferred languages in fallback order
outputFormat	full_text	full_text, timestamped, segments, or rag_chunks
ragChunkWords	200	Target word count per chunk (for rag_chunks format)
fetchMetadata	true	Include title, views, upload date via yt-dlp
limit	100	Max videos to process (for playlist/channel inputs)
useApifyProxy	false	Enable residential proxies if YouTube blocks requests

---

Integration example

import apify_client

client = apify_client.ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("gochujang/youtube-transcript-extractor").call(
    run_input={
        "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=YOUR_PLAYLIST"],
        "outputFormat": "rag_chunks",
        "ragChunkWords": 300,
    }
)
items = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
print(f"Extracted {len(items)} video transcripts")

---

Pricing

Usage	Cost
Run start	$0.001 (flat)
Per video transcribed	$0.01
10 videos	~$0.10
100 videos	~$1.00

Compare: YouTube Data API v3 transcript endpoint = no transcript access (API doesn't provide it). This actor uses the public caption endpoint — no YouTube API key required.

---

Notes

• Works with auto-generated captions (YouTube's automatic transcription) and manual subtitles
• Playlist/channel URLs automatically expand to individual video URLs
• If IpBlocked errors occur, enable useApifyProxy
• Age-restricted or private videos are skipped with a warning
• Concurrent processing: 5 simultaneous requests to respect YouTube's rate limits
• yt-dlp metadata fetch may add 1–2 seconds per video

Keywords: YouTube transcript extractor, YouTube captions downloader, video to text converter, yt-dlp scraper, RAG pipeline text, LLM transcript processing, YouTube subtitle extractor, video transcription tool

---

Related actors

• YouTube Trending Tracker — Find trending videos to then extract transcripts for content analysis
• Earnings Call Transcript — Corporate earnings audio transcripts to pair with YouTube investor presentation transcripts
• PubMed Medical Papers Tracker — Academic text for RAG pipelines alongside YouTube lecture and conference transcripts

Feedback

If this actor powers your content workflows, a review helps others find it: Leave a review on Apify Store