YouTube Transcript Scraper

Get the transcript of any YouTube video as clean text — plain, timestamped, or as caption segments — in the original language or the one you choose. Paste one link or thousands. No login, no API key, no proxy setup.

Built for AI / LLM pipelines (RAG, summaries, chatbots), content repurposing, research and SEO. Pay only for transcripts you get — $2 per 1,000 videos. Videos without captions are never charged.

How to use it (1 minute)

1. Paste YouTube links or video IDs into Videos — watch, youtu.be, Shorts, live and embed links all work.
2. Optional: set Language (e.g. en, or es,en for a fallback). Leave it empty to get the video's original spoken language.
3. Click Start, then download JSON, CSV or Excel — or pull results through the API.

Output example

One row per video:

{
  "videoId": "aircAruvnKk",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk",
  "title": "But what is a neural network? | Deep learning chapter 1",
  "channelName": "3Blue1Brown",
  "channelId": "UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw",
  "durationSeconds": 1120,
  "viewCount": 22000000,
  "availableLanguages": ["ar", "en", "en (auto)", "es", "fr", "de", "..."],
  "language": "en",
  "languageName": "English",
  "isAutoGenerated": false,
  "wordCount": 3357,
  "transcript": "This is a 3. It's sloppily written and rendered at an extremely low resolution of 28x28 pixels, but your brain has no trouble recognizing it as a 3...",
  "transcriptWithTimestamps": "[0:04] This is a 3.\n[0:06] It's sloppily written and rendered at an extremely low resolution of 28x28 pixels,\n..."
}

Turn on Include segments array to also get segments: [{ "start": 4.22, "duration": 1.6, "text": "This is a 3." }, ...] — ready for subtitles, chapters or clip finding.

What people use it for

• AI & LLM input — feed transcripts into ChatGPT/Claude, a vector database or an agent for summaries, Q&A and RAG.
• YouTube to text — convert any video into a text file you can search, translate or archive.
• Content repurposing — turn videos into blog posts, newsletters, tweets and show notes.
• Research — analyze what competitors, experts or a whole channel say, at scale.
• SEO & accessibility — publish text versions of your videos.
• Translation & learning — pick any caption language the video offers.

Pricing

You pay $2 per 1,000 transcripts ($0.002 each), plus $0.00005 per run. Proxy costs are included.

You collect	Approximate cost
1 video	$0.002
500 videos from a channel	$1.00
10,000 videos for an AI dataset	$20

Videos with no captions, private/deleted videos and invalid links are never charged — they're listed in the run's RUN_SUMMARY with the reason. Set a spending limit and the run stops there.

Input example

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk",
    "https://youtu.be/kJQP7kiw5Fk",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jNQXAC9IVRw"
  ],
  "language": "en",
  "includeTimestamps": true,
  "includeSegments": false
}

FAQ

Which language do I get? With Language empty: the video's original spoken language (a human-made caption if one exists, otherwise YouTube's auto-generated one). With Language set: the first match from your list; isAutoGenerated tells you which kind you got.

What if a video has no transcript? It's skipped, not charged, and listed in RUN_SUMMARY → withoutTranscript. This tool reads YouTube's captions; it does not do speech-to-text.

Does it work for Shorts and live streams? Yes, as long as the video has captions.

Can I use it from code, Make, Zapier or n8n? Yes — start runs and read results through the Apify API, or use Apify's integrations.

Is it legal? It reads only publicly available captions. You're responsible for using the content in line with copyright law and YouTube's terms.

Something broken? Open an issue on this page — I usually reply within a day.

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