# Podcast Transcript Scraper - RSS & Apple Podcasts to Text (`seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper`) Actor

Turn any podcast episode into a full text transcript with timestamps, SRT and VTT subtitles from an RSS feed, Apple Podcasts link or audio file URL.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Seemu Scraping](https://apify.com/seemuapps) (community)
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 1 monthly users, 87.5% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $8.00 / 1,000 minute of audios

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Podcast Transcript Scraper - RSS & Apple Podcasts to Text

Turn any podcast episode into a full, timestamped text transcript. Paste an RSS feed, an Apple Podcasts show or episode link, or a direct audio file URL and get the transcript, sentence-level segments with timestamps, and ready-to-use SRT and VTT subtitle files - plus the episode's title, date, description and audio link. Works in 100+ languages with automatic language detection.

### What you get

One dataset row per episode with:

- **Transcript**: `transcript` (full text), `segments` (`start`, `end`, `text` in seconds), `wordCount`, `language`, `minutesTranscribed`
- **Subtitle files** in the run's key-value store: `srtUrl`, `vttUrl`, `txtUrl`
- **Episode metadata**: `episodeTitle`, `episodeGuid`, `episodeUrl`, `publishedAt`, `seasonNumber`, `episodeNumber`, `description`, `durationSeconds`, `audioUrl`, `audioType`, `audioBytes`
- **Show metadata**: `podcastTitle`, `podcastAuthor`, `podcastFeedUrl`, `podcastImageUrl`

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or Google Sheets from the Apify console, or pull the dataset via API.

### Use cases

- **Content repurposing** - turn episodes into show notes, blog posts, newsletters and social clips
- **Podcast SEO** - publish transcripts alongside episodes so search engines can index the spoken content
- **Research and monitoring** - search what was said across a show's back catalogue or track mentions of a brand or topic
- **Accessibility** - generate SRT/VTT captions for video versions of your podcast
- **AI pipelines** - feed clean, timestamped transcripts to summarisers, RAG systems and agents

### How to use

1. Paste one or more **Podcast URLs**: an RSS feed (`https://feeds.example.com/show`), an Apple Podcasts show link (`https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736`), an Apple Podcasts episode link (with `?i=`), or a direct `.mp3` / `.m4a` file URL.
2. Set **Episodes per feed** (newest first, default 1) and optionally **Episode title contains** to pick specific episodes.
3. Optionally cap **Max minutes per episode** (e.g. `15` to transcribe only the opening) and set a **Language** hint.
4. Run the actor. Transcripts appear in the **Dataset** tab; SRT, VTT and TXT files appear in the **Key-value store** tab.

### Output example

```json
{
  "status": "ok",
  "podcastTitle": "The Daily",
  "podcastAuthor": "The New York Times",
  "episodeTitle": "The Techno-Religion at the Center of the A.I. Debate",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-18T09:45:00.000Z",
  "durationSeconds": 2292,
  "minutesTranscribed": 39,
  "language": "en",
  "wordCount": 5820,
  "transcript": "From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily...",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 0, "end": 4.8, "text": "From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro." },
    { "start": 4.8, "end": 6.9, "text": "This is The Daily." }
  ],
  "srtUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/The-Daily-The-Techno-Religion....srt",
  "vttUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/The-Daily-The-Techno-Religion....vtt",
  "txtUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/The-Daily-The-Techno-Religion....txt"
}
```

### Pricing

Pay per event: a small fee per episode plus a fee per minute of audio transcribed (rounded up). Free-plan users get 10 minutes of transcription per run; upgrade to any paid Apify plan to remove the limit.

### FAQ

**Which sources are supported?** Any public podcast RSS feed, Apple Podcasts show and episode links, and direct audio URLs (MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, OGG, FLAC, MP4). Spotify does not expose podcast audio, so Spotify links are not supported - use the show's RSS or Apple link instead.

**How long can an episode be?** Up to 500 MB per file (roughly 8 hours of MP3). Long episodes are processed in chunks with continuous timestamps.

**How accurate are the timestamps?** Segments are sentence-level with start/end times accurate to about a second, suitable for subtitles, chaptering and quoting.

**Can I transcribe a whole back catalogue?** Yes - set **Episodes per feed** to the number you need (up to 200 per run) and schedule the actor for new episodes.

**Do I get speaker names?** Not in this version. Segments are in speaking order without speaker labels.

# Actor input Schema

## `podcastUrls` (type: `array`):

One per line: a podcast RSS feed URL, an Apple Podcasts show or episode link (podcasts.apple.com/...), or a direct audio file URL (.mp3, .m4a, .wav ...). Spotify links are not supported.

## `maxEpisodesPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

How many of the newest episodes to transcribe from each RSS feed or Apple Podcasts show. An Apple episode link (with ?i=) always transcribes just that episode.

## `episodeTitleContains` (type: `string`):

Optional keyword filter: only transcribe episodes whose title contains this text (case-insensitive).

## `maxMinutesPerEpisode` (type: `integer`):

Only transcribe the first N minutes of each episode. 0 transcribes the full episode.

## `language` (type: `string`):

Optional 2-letter ISO language code of the spoken audio (en, es, de, fr ...). Leave empty to auto-detect.

## `includeSegments` (type: `boolean`):

Add a segments array (start, end, text) to every episode row. SRT and VTT files are always written to the key-value store.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "podcastUrls": [
    "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736"
  ],
  "maxEpisodesPerFeed": 1,
  "maxMinutesPerEpisode": 0,
  "includeSegments": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One record per episode: podcastTitle, episodeTitle, publishedAt, durationSeconds, audioUrl, description, language, wordCount, transcript, segments (start, end, text), srtUrl, vttUrl, txtUrl.

## `files` (type: `string`):

SRT, VTT and TXT files for every episode, named after the podcast and episode title.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "podcastUrls": [
        "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "podcastUrls": ["https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "podcastUrls": [
    "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736"
  ]
}' |
apify call seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,seemuapps/podcast-transcript-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/6uvy1TiXT8y5ApXwy/builds/8FEUywgMKgwiqR2ol/openapi.json