# YouTube Shorts Transcripts — Captions & Subtitles Scraper (`sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts`) Actor

No API key needed. Get YouTube Shorts transcripts (captions & subtitles) in bulk: one record per Short with the text in its original language, timestamps, title, channel and duration. Clean Excel export. Pay only per transcript delivered — $5 per 1,000.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts.md
- **Developed by:** [Alejandro Salamanca F SICTEG LTDA](https://apify.com/sicteg) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$5.00 / 1,000 transcriptions

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

## YouTube Shorts Transcripts

### Video walkthrough

A 50-second recording of a real run (one channel, 8 Shorts, 20 comments each): https://youtu.be/0CwQeIuzTg0

Get the **full spoken text of any YouTube Short**, with timestamps, plus its title, channel, duration and language.

Paste a list of Shorts (or a whole channel) and get one clean record per Short: the transcript split into timestamped fragments **and** the plain text ready to use.

You pay **per transcript delivered** — Shorts without captions are reported as `sin_subtitulo` and are not charged.

### What you get

One dataset item per Short:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `video_id`, `url` | Short identifier and link |
| `titulo`, `canal` | Video title and channel name |
| `duracion_s` | Duration in seconds |
| `idioma` | Language of the transcript found |
| `subtitulo_automatico` | `true` if it is YouTube's auto-generated caption, `false` if it is a human-made one |
| `es_traduccion` | `true` if the text is one of YouTube's automatic **machine translations** instead of the video's original language |
| `texto_completo` | The full transcript as one plain-text string |
| `texto_con_tiempos` | The same text, one line per fragment, prefixed with its time (`[00:01.64] …`) — ready for a spreadsheet |
| `fragmentos_total` | Number of fragments |
| `estado`, `error` | `ok`, or the reason the Short had no transcript |

### Input

- **Start URLs** — Shorts links, video links, or channel URLs (e.g. `https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast/shorts`). Channel URLs return every Short shown on the channel's Shorts tab.
- **Max Shorts** — cap per run.
- **Languages** — preferred transcript languages, in order. A human-made caption is always preferred over an auto-generated one.
- **Return the video's original language** — on by default: you get the language the video was really recorded in, **not** one of YouTube's automatic machine translations. Turn it off only if you deliberately want translations to your preferred languages.
- **Proxy** — residential Apify Proxy by default. YouTube rate-limits transcripts per IP, so the tool rotates the IP on every request and retries on `429`, `403` and YouTube's "sign in to confirm you're not a bot" response.

### Use cases

- **Content repurposing** — turn a creator's Shorts into posts, newsletters or scripts.
- **Research** — analyse what is being said in short-form video at scale.
- **Creator monitoring** — follow competitors' Shorts and read the text without watching.
- **AI / RAG pipelines** — clean text with timestamps, ready to chunk and embed.
- **Subtitles and editing** — timestamps of every line, straight from the source.
- **Accessibility and moderation review** — searchable text for a batch of Shorts.

### Output example

```json
{
  "video_id": "aNI2jv7lBPQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
  "titulo": "Giving $10,000 To A Random Subscriber",
  "canal": "MrBeast",
  "duracion_s": 40,
  "idioma": "en",
  "subtitulo_automatico": true,
  "fragmentos_total": 35,
  "texto_completo": "Find a subscriber for whatever country that lands on, give them 10 grand. ...",
  "fragmentos": [{ "t": 0.0, "d": 4.2, "x": "Find a subscriber for whatever country" }],
  "estado": "ok"
}
```

### Pricing

**Pay per event: US$5.00 per 1,000 transcripts** (US$0.005 per Short with a transcript). Shorts without captions are free.

Typical checks: this tool is tested against real channels. On a 40-Short channel in English it returned **38 transcripts (95%)**; the two missing ones had no captions at all. On a 12-Short channel in Spanish it returned **12 of 12**. Runs are capped by *Max Shorts*.

### Nota en español

Esta herramienta saca el **texto completo de cualquier YouTube Short**, con sus tiempos, más el título, el canal, la duración y el idioma. Le pasas enlaces de Shorts o un canal entero y devuelve una fila por Short, con los fragmentos marcados por tiempo y el texto listo para usar.

**Solo se cobra por transcripción entregada**: los Shorts que no traen subtítulo salen marcados como `sin_subtitulo` y no se cobran. Precio: **US$5 por cada 1.000 transcripciones**.

Sirve para reutilizar contenido, investigar, monitorear canales, alimentar flujos de IA o sacar subtítulos para edición. En las pruebas reales: 95% de Shorts resueltos en un canal en inglés y 100% en un canal en español.

### Example script / Script de ejemplo

A ready-to-run example (Python, no dependencies required) that runs this Actor over a channel and writes the
result to CSV lives here: <https://github.com/sictegltda-cyber/youtube-shorts-transcripts-to-csv>

Its README documents the three traps this Actor solves (machine-translated captions, the 1.9 MB watch page, and
the per-IP rate limit), with the measurements.

***

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

Shorts links, video links, or channel URLs. A channel URL returns every Short on its Shorts tab. Example: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast/shorts

## `maxShorts` (type: `integer`):

Cap per start URL: each link returns up to this many Shorts (its most recent ones).

## `languages` (type: `array`):

Transcript languages in order of preference. A human-made caption is always preferred over an auto-generated one. Example: es, en

## `preferirIdiomaOriginal` (type: `boolean`):

On (default): the transcript comes in the language the video was actually recorded in. YouTube also offers automatic machine translations of every video - turn this off to allow them and use the preferred languages above.

## `pauseBetweenRequests` (type: `number`):

Increase it if YouTube starts rate-limiting.

## `usarUnblockerParaTexto` (type: `boolean`):

Optional fallback. The default (off) uses residential proxy only, which is cheaper. Turn it on if you see many blocked requests.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

YouTube rate-limits transcripts per IP. Residential proxy rotates the IP on every request.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc"
  ],
  "maxShorts": 10,
  "languages": [
    "es",
    "en"
  ],
  "preferirIdiomaOriginal": true,
  "pauseBetweenRequests": 0.5,
  "usarUnblockerParaTexto": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts").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 = { "startUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts").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 '{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aNI2jv7lBPQ",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CEJXqm2eiJ0",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T_SMf9j50uc"
  ]
}' |
apify call sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,sicteg/youtube-shorts-transcripts"
        }
    }
}
```

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/IwyvNGSJ9MuZOj5QX/builds/ZfvGmwnhvTq96IvRG/openapi.json