YouTube Video Transcript Extractor

Extract full transcripts and captions from any YouTube video with timestamped segments, multiple language support, and word count metadata. Whether you need manual captions uploaded by the creator or auto-generated subtitles, this actor retrieves them in a clean, structured format ready for downstream processing.

What is YouTube Transcript Extractor?

YouTube Transcript Extractor pulls the complete transcript from a YouTube video and returns it as structured data. It works with both manually uploaded captions and YouTube's automatic speech recognition (ASR) captions. You can request transcripts in any available language, and the response includes a list of all languages the video supports so you can make follow-up requests if needed.

The actor accepts either a full YouTube URL or a plain video ID, so you can paste links directly from your browser without needing to extract the ID yourself. It handles standard watch URLs, short youtu.be links, embed URLs, and Shorts URLs.

What can this actor do?

• Full transcript extraction — Retrieve the complete spoken content of any YouTube video
• Timestamped segments — Each segment includes a start time and duration for precise alignment
• Multiple language support — Request transcripts in any language the video offers, including auto-generated translations
• Auto-caption support — Works with YouTube's automatic speech recognition when manual captions are not available
• Available languages list — Returns all languages the video has transcripts for, so you know what is available
• Full text output — Get the entire transcript as a single concatenated string for quick text analysis
• Word count — Includes a word count of the full transcript for content length estimation
• Flexible input — Accepts full YouTube URLs, short links, or bare video IDs

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
video_id	The YouTube video ID
title	Title of the video
url	Full URL to the video
language	Language code of the returned transcript
source	Caption source — manual or auto_generated
available_languages	All caption tracks on the video — [{ code, name, is_auto }, ...]
full_text	The entire transcript as a single string
word_count	Total number of words in the transcript
transcript	Array of timestamped segments
transcript[].text	Text content of the segment
transcript[].start	Start time in seconds
transcript[].duration	Duration of the segment in seconds
scraped_at	When the transcript was scraped

Use cases

• Content analysis — Analyze what creators talk about in their videos without watching hours of footage
• SEO research — Extract keywords and topics from high-performing videos to inform your content strategy
• Content repurposing — Turn video transcripts into blog posts, social media threads, newsletters, or summaries
• Accessibility auditing — Verify that videos have accurate captions and check transcript quality
• Competitive intelligence — Monitor what competitors discuss in their video content at scale
• Training data — Collect spoken-word text for NLP model training or fine-tuning

How to use

1. Enter a YouTube video ID or paste the full URL
2. Optionally set the language code (defaults to English)
3. Run the actor
4. Download the transcript as JSON, CSV, or Excel

Input example

{
  "videoId": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en"
}

Output example

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "source": "manual",
  "available_languages": [
    { "code": "en", "name": "English", "is_auto": false },
    { "code": "es", "name": "Spanish", "is_auto": true },
    { "code": "fr", "name": "French", "is_auto": true }
  ],
  "full_text": "We're no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I...",
  "word_count": 263,
  "transcript": [
    {
      "text": "We're no strangers to love",
      "start": 18.0,
      "duration": 3.5
    },
    {
      "text": "you know the rules and so do I",
      "start": 21.5,
      "duration": 3.2
    }
  ],
  "scraped_at": "2026-03-08T12:00:00Z"
}

Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing:

• Actor start: Small fee per run
• Per result: Fee for each transcript returned

Platform usage costs are included — you only pay the per-event fees.

FAQ

What types of captions does this support? Both manually uploaded captions and YouTube's auto-generated captions (ASR). The actor retrieves whatever is available for the requested language.

What if the video has no transcript? The actor will return an error indicating that no transcript is available for the video in the requested language. Check the available_languages field to see what options exist.

Can I get transcripts in multiple languages? Run the actor once per language. The first run will return the available_languages list so you know which languages to request.

Can I use this with the Apify API? Yes! Call this actor via the Apify API or any Apify integration (Zapier, Make, etc.)