YouTube Transcript Scraper: Videos, Channels, Playlists & Search

Get YouTube transcripts and subtitles in bulk, from video links, whole channels, playlists or a YouTube search. Each video comes back as clean text ready for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs, plus optional timestamped segments, SRT and WebVTT subtitles, and the video's metadata.

$1 per 1,000 transcripts, and you only pay for transcripts you receive. Videos without captions are reported to you and never charged.

What can it do?

• 📼 Up to 10,000 videos per run: paste links or IDs. Normal videos, Shorts, youtu.be links, embeds and live replays all work.
• 🔎 YouTube search to transcripts: type a topic ("best budget laptop 2026") and get transcripts of the top results.
• 📺 Whole channels: @mkbhd or any channel URL; the newest videos first.
• 📃 Playlists: courses, podcasts and lecture series, in playlist order.
• 🌍 Language control: list your preferred languages (en, fr, ar…). If a video doesn't have them, you get its original spoken language instead (or skip it, your choice). Human-made captions are preferred over auto-generated ones.
• 🧾 Formats: full plain text (always), timestamped segments, SRT, WebVTT.
• 📊 Metadata included free: title, channel, duration, views, tags, description and thumbnail.
• 🛡️ Reliable: uses cheap datacenter proxies and automatically switches to residential proxies when YouTube shows its bot check, so runs keep going.

Use cases

• AI and RAG: feed transcripts into a vector database, chatbot or AI agent knowledge base.
• Content repurposing: turn videos into blog posts, newsletters, threads and summaries.
• SEO and competitor research: see what top videos in your niche actually say.
• Research and journalism: analyze lectures, interviews, speeches and podcasts at scale.
• Subtitles and accessibility: export SRT or VTT files for your editor or player.
• Language learning datasets: collect transcripts in a specific language.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free.
2. Add video URLs, YouTube searches, channels or playlists (any mix).
3. Optional: set preferred languages and the extra formats you need.
4. Click Start, then download your data as JSON, CSV or Excel, or use it through the API, Make, Zapier or n8n.

Input examples

Transcribe the 50 latest videos of two channels in English or French:

{
    "channels": ["@mkbhd", "https://www.youtube.com/@TED"],
    "maxVideosPerSource": 50,
    "languages": ["en", "fr"]
}

Search YouTube and get SRT subtitles for the top 10 results:

{
    "searchQueries": ["how to learn python"],
    "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
    "outputFormats": ["segments", "srt"]
}

Output example

One row per video (text shortened):

{
    "videoId": "arj7oStGLkU",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU",
    "title": "Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator | Tim Urban | TED",
    "channelName": "TED",
    "channelId": "UCAuUUnT6oDeKwE6v1NGQxug",
    "durationSeconds": 844,
    "viewCount": 62119036,
    "language": "en",
    "languageName": "English",
    "isAutoGenerated": false,
    "matchedPreferredLanguage": true,
    "availableLanguages": "ar, hy, bg, …, en, en (auto), fr, fr-CA, …",
    "transcript": "So in college, I was a government major, which means I had to write a lot of papers. …",
    "wordCount": 2277,
    "characterCount": 12671,
    "segmentCount": 315,
    "segments": [
        { "start": 12.645, "duration": 1.37, "text": "So in college," },
        { "start": 15.349, "duration": 1.564, "text": "I was a government major," }
    ],
    "srt": "1\n00:00:12,645 --> 00:00:14,015\nSo in college,\n\n2\n…",
    "source": "video",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T15:28:07.200Z"
}

Other fields: channelUrl, keywords, description, thumbnailUrl, isLiveContent, vtt. The Output tab lists them all.

Videos that produced no transcript (no captions, private, deleted, invalid link) are listed with the reason in the FAILED_VIDEOS record of the run's key-value store, and the run's status message tells you how many there were.

How much does it cost?

$1.00 per 1,000 transcripts, plus a tiny start fee per run. Platform usage and proxies are included.

Transcripts	Price
100	$0.10
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00

Videos without captions and failed videos are never charged. You can set a maximum cost per run; the scraper stops when it's reached and never charges more. The Apify Free plan's monthly credit is enough to try it on hundreds of videos.

Tips

• Original language: leave Preferred languages empty to get every video in the language it's spoken in.
• Strict language: set your languages and turn off Fall back to the original language to skip videos that don't have them.
• Best accuracy: choose Human-made only to skip auto-generated captions.
• Big jobs: raise Maximum videos in total (up to 10,000 per run) and Videos per search, channel or playlist (up to 5,000).

FAQ

Does it work on videos without captions? No. It reads the captions YouTube already has (human-made or auto-generated, which most videos have). It doesn't run speech-to-text. Videos without captions are listed in FAILED_VIDEOS and not charged.

Can it translate transcripts? Not currently. YouTube blocks automatic caption translation for apps that aren't signed in. Many videos already have human translations; set your language in Preferred languages to get them.

Is it legal? It collects publicly available captions and video information, with no login and no personal data about viewers. Transcripts are the creators' content: respect copyright and YouTube's terms when you republish or use them commercially. If in doubt, consult a lawyer. Read more about the legality of web scraping.

Why did some videos fail? Common reasons: no captions, private or deleted videos, age-restricted videos (they need a signed-in account) and live streams still in progress. FAILED_VIDEOS gives the exact reason for each video.

Do I need to configure proxies? No. The default setting handles YouTube's bot checks automatically.

Limitations

• Needs existing captions; no speech-to-text.
• No caption translation.
• Age-restricted, members-only and private videos can't be transcribed.
• Search and channel listings follow YouTube's own order and availability.

Support

Found a bug or need a feature? Open an issue in the Issues tab with your run ID.