🌟 YouTube Shorts Transcript Fetcher (Shorts-only)

Instant, reliable transcripts for YouTube Shorts — optimized for short-form content.

---

📖 Overview

This Actor fetches clean, timestamped transcripts specifically from YouTube Shorts (including youtu.be short links and /shorts URLs). It is optimized for short durations, fast responses, and batch processing of multiple Shorts.

---

💡 Why Shorts-only?

• Shorts are brief — timestamps and compact formatting matter.
• Many Shorts use alternative URL forms (youtu.be and /shorts) — this Actor normalizes them.
• Faster runs and smaller payloads reduce cost when processing thousands of short clips.

---

🔧 Key Features

• ✅ Short-specific URL normalization (/shorts, youtu.be).
• ✅ Dual-source transcript fetching with smart fallback.
• ✅ Compact timestamped output tailored for clips under 60 seconds.
• ✅ Batch input support and configurable concurrency.
• ✅ Proxy-compatible and production-ready.

---

⚡ Quick Start — Console

1. Open the Actor on Apify Console.
2. Paste one or more Shorts URLs into the input (regular, /shorts/ or youtu.be links accepted).
3. Click Run — view transcript items in the Dataset.

---

⚙️ Quick Start — CLI & Python

CLI

$apify call neuro-scraper/youtube-shorts-transcript --input ./shorts_input.json

Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('<APIFY_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('neuro-scraper/youtube-shorts-transcript').call(
    run_input={"startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EXAMPLE"}]}
)
for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items()['items']:
    print(item['Transcript']['plain_text'])

---

📝 Inputs (Shorts-focused)

Name	Type	Required	Default	Example	Notes
startUrls	array	Yes	[]	[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abcd1234"}]	List of Shorts URLs
workers	integer	Optional	5	10	Max concurrent fetches
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional	{}	{"useApifyProxy": true}	Proxy settings

Example input (Console JSON):

{
  "startUrls": [
    {"url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abcd1234"},
    {"url": "https://youtu.be/abcd1234"}
  ],
  "workers": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": {"useApifyProxy": true}
}

---

📄 Outputs (compact)

Each Dataset item returns a compact schema tuned for Shorts:

{
    "video_id": "AWBsoArakNY",
    "title": "Who Has The Fastest Reaction Time?",
    "url": "https://youtube.com/shorts/AWBsoArakNY?si=8ThAJzdEEA1PnZRk",
    "lang": "en",
    "format": "vtt",
    "segments": [
      {
        "start": 3.919,
        "end": 5.99,
        "text": "I [screaming] WON. I WON. OH, I SHOULD",
        "duration": 2.071,
        "duration_seconds": 2,
        "duration_milliseconds": 71,
        "duration_seconds_with_ms": "2.071",
        "duration_minutes": 0.03451666666666667,
        "start_ts": "00:00:03.919",
        "end_ts": "00:00:05.990",
        "display": "Transcripts:\nStart: 00:00:03.919  End: 00:00:05.990\nDuration: 2.071 seconds (0.034517 minutes)\n\nNo transcript added for this duration."
      }
      ]
      }

Outputs are easy to export (JSON, CSV, Excel) and optimized to contain only essential text and timestamps.

---

🔑 Environment Variables

• APIFY_TOKEN — required.
• HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY — optional.
• APIFY_PROXY_PASSWORD — use when using Apify Proxy.

Store credentials securely as secrets, not plaintext.

---

▶️ How to Run (short checklist)

1. Open Apify Console → Actors → YouTube Shorts Transcript Fetcher.
2. Paste Shorts-only input JSON or use CLI/Python.
3. Run and inspect Dataset.

---

🛠 Logs & Troubleshooting

• No transcript available — the Short may not have captions or the audio is muted.
• Timeouts / failures — try reducing concurrency (workers) or enable proxy.

Monitor real-time logs in the Console Run Log panel.

---

⏱ Scheduling & Webhooks

• Schedule frequent short-run batches (e.g., every 15 minutes or hourly) for near-real-time ingestion.
• Use Webhooks to push results to downstream systems after each run.

---

🔟 Changelog

• 1.0.0 — 2025-11-04: Initial Shorts-only release.

---

📝 Notes & TODO

• TODO: Add demo GIF showing Console run for Shorts.
• TODO: Add language detection flag for multilingual Shorts.

---

✅ Final note

This README is tailored for teams that process high volumes of YouTube Shorts and need compact, timestamped transcripts quickly and reliably.