YouTube Transcript Scraper

YouTube Transcript Scraper 🎬📝

Extract complete transcripts from YouTube videos with precise timestamps and metadata. This actor processes a single YouTube video and returns the full transcript with timing information, perfect for content analysis, research, accessibility, and video archiving.

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📚 Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Key Features
3. When to Use This Actor
4. Input Parameters
5. Output Data
6. How to Use on Apify
7. Examples
8. Best Practices
9. FAQ
10. Tags

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🔎 Overview

The YouTube Transcript Scraper actor makes it easy to:

• Extract complete transcripts from any YouTube video
• Get precise timestamps (start/end times in milliseconds) for each text segment
• Auto-select English transcripts when default transcript is not available
• Receive clean, structured JSON output ready for processing

You can export the dataset to JSON, CSV or Excel and plug it into your own tools, dashboards, NLP/AI pipelines or automations.

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✨ Key Features

• Flexible input – accepts either a full YouTube URL or just the video ID
• Auto-language selection – automatically selects English transcript if default is unavailable
• Precise timestamps – includes startMs, endMs, and startTime for each entry
• Section headers – captures chapter/section information when available
• Duration metadata – includes duration in milliseconds for each transcript entry
• Clean, structured output – organized transcript array with consistent fields
• Clear error messages – failures are stored as simple, readable error items

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🎯 When to Use This Actor

Use this actor when you want to:

• Build a transcript dataset for NLP, AI training, or content analysis
• Create searchable text from video content
• Generate video summaries or content indexes
• Enable accessibility features for video content
• Archive video transcripts for research or compliance

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⚙️ Input Parameters

Your input lives in the actor's INPUT store and is controlled by the Apify UI form.

Field	Type	Required	Description
videoId	string	Yes	YouTube video ID or full video URL. The actor automatically extracts the video ID.

Notes

• videoId accepts both:
  • Full URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY
  • Raw ID: 5MgBikgcWnY
  • Shorts URL: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abc123

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📤 Output Data

Each successful dataset item contains the complete transcript for the requested video.

Field	Type	Description
transcript	array	Array of transcript entries (text segments and section headers).
language	string	Language of the transcript (only present when auto-selected).

Transcript Entry Fields (type: text)

Field	Type	Description
type	string	Entry type: text for transcript text.
text	string	The transcript text content.
startMs	string	Start time in milliseconds.
endMs	string	End time in milliseconds.
startTime	string	Formatted start time (e.g., 0:05).
duration	number	Duration in milliseconds.

Section Header Fields (type: section)

Field	Type	Description
type	string	Entry type: section for chapter headers.
headline	string	Section/chapter title.
startMs	string	Start time in milliseconds.
endMs	string	End time in milliseconds.

If the actor cannot fetch a transcript for the video, you will see an error item:

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	YouTube video ID.
videoUrl	string	Full video URL.
status	string	no_transcript or failed.
message	string	Human-readable status message.
availableTranscripts	array	List of available transcript options (if any).
error	string	Error message (for failed status).
httpStatus	number	HTTP status code (for failed status).

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🚀 How to Use on Apify

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Click Run.
3. In the input form:
   • Paste a YouTube video URL or ID into the videoId field.
4. Start the run.
5. When the run finishes, open the Dataset tab to see the transcript.
6. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel for further use.

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💡 Examples

Example 1 – Using full YouTube URL

{
  "videoId": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY"
}

Example 2 – Using video ID only

{
  "videoId": "5MgBikgcWnY"
}

Sample Output

{
  "transcript": [
    {
      "type": "text",
      "text": "Hello and welcome to this video",
      "startMs": "0",
      "endMs": "3500",
      "startTime": "0:00",
      "duration": 3500
    },
    {
      "type": "section",
      "headline": "Introduction",
      "startMs": "5000",
      "endMs": "60000"
    }
  ]
}

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✅ Best Practices

• Use public YouTube videos that are available worldwide.
• Prefer full video URLs if you are unsure about the video ID format.
• The actor auto-selects English transcripts when the default is unavailable.
• After the run finishes, export the dataset for processing in external tools.

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❓ FAQ

Q: Does this actor download the actual video?
A: No, the actor only extracts the transcript text and metadata. No video files are downloaded.

Q: Can I scrape multiple videos in one run?
A: This actor is designed for one video per run. For multiple videos, create a workflow that runs the actor for each video ID.

Q: What languages are supported?
A: The actor fetches the default transcript. If unavailable, it auto-selects English if available. Other languages are listed in availableTranscripts.

Q: What happens if no transcript is available?
A: The actor returns a no_transcript status with a list of available transcript options (if any).

Q: Why do I see error items in the dataset?
A: Error items appear when the transcript service cannot return data (invalid video ID, unavailable video, or technical issues).

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🏷️ Tags

youtube transcript scraper, youtube transcript api, youtube captions extractor, youtube transcript dataset, download youtube transcript, youtube video transcript, youtube text extraction, video transcript scraper, youtube subtitle text, youtube transcript downloader

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🚀 Get Started Now

Ready to extract YouTube video transcripts?

1. 🎥 Enter a YouTube video URL or ID
2. ▶️ Click Start to run the actor
3. 📥 Download your transcript in JSON, CSV, or Excel format
4. Click "Try for free" to test the actor

⭐ Star this actor if it helps you extract YouTube transcripts efficiently!

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Related Actors 🤝

Looking for more YouTube data? Check out these complementary actors:

• YouTube Video Downloader
• YouTube Comment Scraper
• YouTube Search Scraper
• YouTube Video Scraper
• YouTube Subtitles Scraper

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Built with ❤️ by Sachin Kumar Yadav using Apify Platform