YouTube Transcript Scraper gets the transcript (captions or subtitles) of any YouTube video as clean text and as timestamped segments, in any language the video has, plus its title, channel, views and duration. It is made for AI and RAG pipelines, content research and repurposing: download YouTube subtitles in bulk and export them to JSON, CSV or Excel, with no YouTube API key and no login.

What does YouTube Transcript Scraper do?

You give it a list of videos. For each video, the robot reads the list of caption tracks that YouTube offers, picks the best one for your preferred language, downloads it and returns:

• the full transcript as one plain text string,
• every caption line with its start time and duration (optional),
• which language was used, whether the captions are auto-generated, and which other languages exist,
• the video's title, channel, channel ID, view count and length.

It accepts:

• Watch URLs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Short links: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Shorts URLs: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/<id>
• Embed and live URLs: /embed/<id>, /live/<id>
• Plain 11-character video IDs: dQw4w9WgXcQ

Both captions uploaded by the creator and YouTube's automatic captions are supported. The same video listed twice is processed once.

What data can you extract?

Field	What it means	Example
videoId	11-character video ID	dQw4w9WgXcQ
url	Link to the video	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
title	Video title	Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)
channel	Channel name	Rick Astley
channelId	Channel ID	UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw
views	Exact view count	1824221265
lengthSeconds	Video length in seconds	213
language	Language code of the transcript that was returned	en
autoGenerated	true if these are YouTube's automatic captions	false
availableLanguages	Language codes of all caption tracks of the video	["en", "en", "de-DE", "ja", "pt-BR", "es-419"]
text	The whole transcript as one string, lines joined with spaces	[♪♪♪] ♪ We're no strangers to love ♪…
segments	List of caption lines, each with start, duration and text (only when includeSegments is on)	see below
error	Only on error items: why no transcript was returned	No transcript available

Each item in segments has:

Key	What it means	Example
start	When the line starts, in seconds from the beginning of the video	18.64
duration	How long the line is shown, in seconds	3.24
text	The caption line	♪ We're no strangers to love ♪

The default table view shows title, channel, language, autoGenerated, lengthSeconds, text and url. The full JSON export also has segments.

How to use YouTube Transcript Scraper

1. Open the robot in Apify Console and go to the Input tab.
2. In Video URLs or IDs, paste one video per line.
3. Set Preferred language to a code such as en, pt or es (default en).
4. Keep Include timestamped segments on if you need start times, or turn it off to get only the plain text.
5. Click Start. Transcripts appear in the Output tab as they are ready.
6. Click Export to download JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or read the dataset through the API. JSON keeps the segments list in its natural form.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
videos	array of strings	["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"]	Video URLs (watch, youtu.be, shorts, embed, live) or 11-character IDs.
language	string	en	Preferred caption language code. If the video doesn't have it, another track is used (see Tips).
includeSegments	boolean	true	Also return each caption line with start time and duration.
proxy	object	{ "useApifyProxy": true }	Apify Proxy settings.

Example input:

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/aircAruvnKk"
  ],
  "language": "en",
  "includeSegments": true,
  "proxy": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

Output example

A real item from a recent run (the text is shortened and only the first 4 of 61 segments are shown):

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "channel": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "views": 1824221265,
  "lengthSeconds": 213,
  "language": "en",
  "autoGenerated": false,
  "availableLanguages": ["en", "en", "de-DE", "ja", "pt-BR", "es-419"],
  "text": "[♪♪♪] ♪ We're no strangers to love ♪ ♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪ ♪ A full commitment's what I'm thinking of ♪ …",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 1.36, "duration": 1.68, "text": "[♪♪♪]" },
    { "start": 18.64, "duration": 3.24, "text": "♪ We're no strangers to love ♪" },
    { "start": 22.64, "duration": 4.32, "text": "♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪" },
    { "start": 27.04, "duration": 4, "text": "♪ A full commitment's what I'm thinking of ♪" }
  ]
}

When a video has no captions, you get an error item with the video details you can still use:

{
  "videoId": "xxxxxxxxxxx",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx",
  "title": "Some video without captions",
  "channel": "Some channel",
  "channelId": "UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "views": 1234,
  "lengthSeconds": 95,
  "error": "No transcript available"
}

How much does it cost?

The robot uses pay per event pricing. You pay only for the transcripts you get, and Apify platform usage is already included in the price.

Event	Price (Free plan)
Transcript extracted	$0.004 per video transcript, which is $4.00 per 1,000 transcripts

The price is per video, whatever its length. Paid Apify plans get a discount:

Plan	Price per 1,000 transcripts
Free	$4.00
Bronze (-10%)	$3.60
Silver (-20%)	$3.20
Gold and higher (-30%)	$2.80

Worked examples on the Free plan:

• One video: $0.004.
• A course of 100 lectures: $0.40.
• 10,000 podcast episodes: $40.00 ($36.00 on Bronze, $32.00 on Silver, $28.00 on Gold).

What is NOT charged:

• Videos without captions (No transcript available).
• Videos that can't be played (Video not available: …), could not be loaded, or whose transcript could not be downloaded.
• Lines in your input that are not a YouTube video URL or ID (they are skipped).

Use cases

• AI, RAG and chatbots: load transcripts into a vector database or send them to an LLM so you can ask questions about a channel, a course or a podcast.
• Summaries and notes: turn lectures, interviews and meetings posted on YouTube into summaries, study notes or show notes.
• Content repurposing: rewrite videos as blog posts, newsletters, social threads or e-books.
• Quotes with timestamps: use segments to find exactly when something was said and link to that moment.
• Subtitle files: build SRT or VTT files from start, duration and text.
• SEO and content research: analyse what top videos in your niche actually talk about.
• Brand and topic monitoring: search transcripts for mentions of a product, a person or a keyword.
• Language learning and accessibility: get the text of a video in the languages it offers.

Tips and limits

• How the language is chosen. The robot picks, in this order: a creator-made track in your exact language; an automatic track in that language; a track whose code starts with your code (pt also matches pt-BR); any creator-made track; the first track. It does not translate. Always check language and autoGenerated in the output.
• availableLanguages can repeat a code, for example ["en", "en", …], when a video has both creator-made and automatic captions in that language.
• Only existing captions. If a video has no captions at all (creator-made or automatic), you get an error item No transcript available. The robot does not do speech-to-text.
• Unavailable videos that YouTube won't play (for example private or removed videos) return an error item Video not available: <reason from YouTube>.
• Text cleanup. Line breaks inside a caption line are replaced by spaces and HTML entities are decoded. Sound tags such as [♪♪♪] or [Music] stay as YouTube wrote them.
• Turn off includeSegments if you only need the plain text. The dataset gets much smaller for long videos.
• Bot checks. YouTube sometimes asks datacenter IPs to sign in. The robot then retries on fresh Apify Proxy IPs and, when your account has access to it, on the Residential proxy group. If every try fails, you get an error item and nothing is charged.
• Videos are processed one after another, and each transcript is saved as soon as it is ready.
• Metadata language. Title and channel are returned as YouTube serves them, with English as the interface language.

Use it from the API, Python or JavaScript

JavaScript (Node.js):

const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const input = {
  videos: ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
  language: 'en',
  includeSegments: false,
};
const run = await client.actor('juliob.rangel/youtube-transcript-fast').call(input);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
for (const item of items) console.log(item.title, item.error ?? item.text.slice(0, 200));

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run_input = {
    'videos': ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
    'language': 'en',
    'includeSegments': False,
}
run = client.actor('juliob.rangel/youtube-transcript-fast').call(run_input=run_input)
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
for item in items:
    print(item.get('title'), item.get('error') or item['text'][:200])

You can also call it over plain HTTP with the Apify API (for example the run-sync-get-dataset-items endpoint of juliob.rangel~youtube-transcript-fast).

It works with Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets export, webhooks and AI agents through the Apify MCP server, so an agent can fetch a transcript on demand.

FAQ

Do I need a login, cookies or a YouTube API key? No. The robot reads the public captions of a video. You only need an Apify account.

Does it work with YouTube Shorts? Yes. Paste the /shorts/ URL or the video ID. If a Short has no captions, you get a free error item.

Does it translate transcripts? No. It returns one of the caption tracks the video already has. If your preferred language is not there, you get another available language, shown in language.

Can I get auto-generated captions? Yes. When there is no creator-made track in your language, the automatic one is used, and autoGenerated is true.

Can I export transcripts to Excel or CSV? Yes. Click Export in the Output tab. For CSV and Excel, turning off includeSegments gives a cleaner table with one row per video. JSON keeps the full segments list.

Why did I get an error item? The video has no captions, is not available (for example private or removed), or YouTube kept blocking the request. Error items are not charged.

Is scraping YouTube transcripts legal? The robot only collects publicly available data. You are responsible for complying with YouTube's terms, copyright and privacy laws such as GDPR and LGPD. If you store personal data, you need a legitimate reason.

Related scrapers

• YouTube Video Details Scraper (Views, Likes, Comments)
• YouTube Comments Scraper (Fast & Cheap)
• YouTube Search Scraper (Fast & Cheap)
• YouTube Playlist Scraper (All Videos, Views, Duration)
• YouTube Channel Videos Scraper (Fast & Cheap)
• Website to Markdown Crawler

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Transcrição de Vídeos do YouTube

Pegue a transcrição (legenda) de qualquer vídeo do YouTube em texto limpo e com tempo de cada trecho, em qualquer idioma disponível. Ideal para IA, resumos e reaproveitar vídeos em texto. Você paga só por transcrição retornada; vídeos sem legenda não são cobrados.