YouTube Video Transcript — Subtitles & Captions Extractor

What does YouTube Video Transcript Extractor do?

YouTube Video Transcript Extractor downloads the full transcript (subtitles/captions) of any YouTube video and returns it as structured, timestamped text. Pass one or more YouTube video URLs or IDs and get back the complete spoken text — no manual downloading or YouTube Premium required.

This is the fastest way to extract video text for LLM processing, summarization, search indexing, content repurposing, or research at scale on the Apify platform.

Why use YouTube Video Transcript Extractor?

• Extract transcripts at scale — batch hundreds of video URLs in one run
• Timestamped output — every line includes its start time and duration
• Multi-language support — retrieve transcripts in any language YouTube provides
• No YouTube API quota — bypass the YouTube Data API v3 daily limits
• LLM-ready — feed transcripts directly to GPT, Claude, or RAG pipelines
• Content repurposing — turn video content into blog posts, notes, or summaries

How to use YouTube Video Transcript Extractor

1. Open the Actor and click Try for free
2. Add YouTube video URLs or IDs to the videoUrls input
3. Optionally specify a preferred language code (e.g., en, es, fr)
4. Click Start — transcripts appear in the Output tab within seconds
5. Download as JSON or CSV, or connect via REST API

Input

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0"
  ],
  "language": "en"
}

Field	Type	Description	Default
videoUrls	array	YouTube video URLs or video IDs	required
language	string	Preferred transcript language code	en

Output

Each result contains the full transcript as an array of timestamped segments, plus a concatenated plain-text version.

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": [
    { "text": "We're no strangers to love", "start": 18.4, "duration": 2.54 },
    { "text": "You know the rules and so do I", "start": 20.94, "duration": 2.58 }
  ],
  "fullText": "We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I..."
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	YouTube video ID
videoUrl	string	Original video URL
language	string	Language code of the returned transcript
transcript	array	Timestamped transcript segments
transcript[].text	string	Spoken text segment
transcript[].start	number	Start time in seconds
transcript[].duration	number	Segment duration in seconds
fullText	string	Complete transcript as plain text

Cost

Pay-per-result pricing:

Volume	Estimated cost
50 transcripts	~$0.05–$0.25
500 transcripts	~$0.50–$2.50
5,000 transcripts	~$5–$25

Cost varies by video length.

Tips

• Use the fullText field to feed directly into summarization or embedding pipelines
• If a video has auto-generated captions only, the transcript may contain punctuation errors — plan accordingly
• Combine with the YouTube Search Scraper to search for videos and then pull their transcripts in one pipeline
• For large batches, use the Apify API to trigger runs programmatically and poll for completion

FAQ

What if a video has no captions? The Actor returns an error for that video ID. Auto-generated captions are supported on most videos.

Can I get transcripts in languages other than English? Yes — set the language field to any BCP-47 language code (e.g., es, de, ar).

Does this require a YouTube account? No. Transcripts are accessed from YouTube's public caption API.

Is this Actor maintained? Yes. Report bugs or feature requests in the Issues tab.

Need help or have questions? Open an issue in the Issues tab or reach out on Discord: maged03211