YouTube Transcript Extractor

Extract transcripts, captions, and subtitles from any YouTube video. Get full text, timed segments with timestamps, video metadata, channel info, and word counts. Supports multiple languages, auto-generated captions, and SRT/VTT/JSON/plain text output formats. Batch process up to 500 videos per run.

Features

• Extract transcripts from any public YouTube video with captions enabled
• Multiple output formats: plain text, SRT subtitles, WebVTT subtitles, or raw JSON segments
• Timed segments with start time and duration for each text block
• Full video metadata: title, channel name, channel URL, duration, view count, publish date
• Multi-language support with automatic fallback to available languages
• Auto-generated caption support — falls back to YouTube's auto-captions when manual captions are unavailable
• Batch processing — extract transcripts from up to 500 videos in a single run
• Word count per video for content analysis
• Accepts all YouTube URL formats: standard, short (youtu.be), embed, and shorts
• Zero-config — works out of the box with sensible defaults
• Pay-per-event pricing — only pay for transcripts successfully extracted

Proxy Requirements

This actor requires residential proxies because YouTube blocks datacenter IP addresses.

• Paid Apify plan users ($49+/month): Works automatically with the default residential proxy configuration. No setup needed.
• Free plan users: Provide your own residential proxy URL in the Proxy Configuration input field. Free Apify plans only include datacenter proxies, which YouTube will block.
• Without a residential proxy, the actor will exit with a clear error message explaining what to do.

Input

All fields are optional. The actor runs with defaults and requires no configuration.

Field	Type	Default	Description
urls	string[]	Example video	List of YouTube video URLs to extract transcripts from
language	string	"en"	Preferred transcript language code (e.g., en, es, fr, de, ja)
includeTimestamps	boolean	true	Include timed segments with start time and duration
includeAutoGenerated	boolean	true	Fall back to auto-generated captions if manual captions are unavailable
outputFormat	string	"text"	Output format: text, srt, vtt, or json
maxVideos	integer	50	Maximum videos to process (1-500)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify residential	Proxy settings. Defaults to Apify residential proxy (requires paid plan)

Output

Each result is one video stored in the default dataset.

Field	Type	Description
videoUrl	string	Canonical YouTube URL
videoId	string	YouTube video ID
title	string or null	Video title
channelName	string or null	Channel name
channelUrl	string or null	Channel URL
duration	string or null	Video duration in ISO 8601 format (e.g., PT5M30S)
viewCount	number or null	Total view count
publishedAt	string or null	Publish date
language	string or null	Language code of the extracted transcript
isAutoGenerated	boolean or null	Whether the transcript is auto-generated by YouTube
transcript	string or null	Full transcript text in the requested format
segments	array or null	Timed segments with text, start, and duration (when includeTimestamps is true)
wordCount	number or null	Total word count of the transcript
error	string or null	Error message if extraction failed for this video
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of extraction

Output Example

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "duration": "PT3M33S",
  "viewCount": 1500000000,
  "publishedAt": "2009-10-25",
  "language": "en",
  "isAutoGenerated": true,
  "transcript": "We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I...",
  "segments": [
    { "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": 3.0 }
  ],
  "wordCount": 287,
  "error": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2025-06-01T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Use Cases

• Content repurposing — convert video content into blog posts, articles, or social media copy
• SEO and keyword research — analyze transcript text for keywords and topic coverage
• Accessibility — generate text versions of video content for hearing-impaired users
• Research and analysis — extract and analyze spoken content from educational or news videos
• Subtitle generation — export SRT or VTT files for use in video editors or players
• AI and NLP pipelines — feed transcript text into summarization, sentiment analysis, or embedding models
• Content monitoring — track what competitors or influencers are saying in their videos

Integrations

Connect this actor with other tools in your workflow:

• Apify API — trigger runs programmatically and retrieve results via REST API
• Webhooks — get notified when extraction completes
• Scheduling — set up recurring runs to monitor new video transcripts
• Apify integrations — connect to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, and more

Pricing

This actor uses Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing: $3.20 per 1,000 transcripts extracted ($0.0032 per event).

Pricing includes all platform compute costs — no hidden fees.

FAQ

What YouTube URL formats are supported?

The actor accepts standard watch URLs (youtube.com/watch?v=), short URLs (youtu.be/), embed URLs (youtube.com/embed/), shorts URLs (youtube.com/shorts/), and bare video IDs.

What if a video has no captions?

The actor reports a clear error message for that video and continues processing the remaining videos. You are not charged for videos without available captions.

Why does this actor need a residential proxy?

YouTube actively blocks requests from datacenter IP addresses. Residential proxies route requests through real ISP connections, which YouTube does not block. Without a residential proxy, requests will fail with 403 errors.

Can I use this on Apify's free plan?

Yes, but you need to provide your own residential proxy URL in the Proxy Configuration input. The free Apify plan only includes datacenter proxies, which YouTube blocks. The actor will exit with a helpful error message if no residential proxy is available.