# YouTube Transcript Scraper - $1/1k, Channels & Playlists (`smolder/youtube-transcript-scraper`) Actor

$1 per 1,000 transcripts. Returns YouTube transcripts in bulk from video URLs, channels, playlists and YouTube search: full text for AI/LLMs, timestamped segments, SRT, VTT, language, plus title, channel, views and duration. Any language. Videos without captions are never charged.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/smolder/youtube-transcript-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Yassine Cherkaoui](https://apify.com/smolder) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 transcripts

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 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:

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

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

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

### Output example

One row per video (text shortened):

```json
{
    "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](https://blog.apify.com/is-web-scraping-legal/).

**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.

# Actor input Schema

## `videos` (type: `array`):

YouTube video links or IDs. Normal videos, Shorts, youtu.be links, embeds and live replays all work. Up to 10,000 videos per run (see Maximum videos in total).

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Search YouTube and transcribe the matching videos, for example "best budget laptop 2026". Uses YouTube's own ranking.

## `channels` (type: `array`):

Transcribe a channel's latest videos (newest first). Use an @handle, a channel URL or a channel ID, for example "@mkbhd".

## `playlists` (type: `array`):

Transcribe the videos of a playlist, in playlist order. Use a playlist URL or ID.

## `maxVideosPerSource` (type: `integer`):

How many videos to take from each search, channel and playlist.

## `maxVideos` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on the number of videos processed in one run, across all inputs.

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

Language codes in order of preference, for example \["en", "fr", "ar"]. The first language that has captions wins; "en" also matches en-US, en-GB and so on. Leave empty to get each video in its original spoken language.

## `fallbackToAnyLanguage` (type: `boolean`):

If none of your preferred languages exists for a video, return the transcript in its original spoken language (or, if that has no captions, the best available language) instead of skipping the video. The output field matchedPreferredLanguage tells you which happened.

## `transcriptType` (type: `string`):

Human-made captions are usually more accurate; auto-generated ones exist for most videos. "Best available" prefers human-made captions and falls back to auto-generated ones.

## `outputFormats` (type: `array`):

The full transcript text is always included. Add timestamped segments (start, duration, text), SRT subtitles or WebVTT subtitles as needed.

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

Leave the default: the scraper uses Apify's datacenter proxies and automatically switches to residential proxies when YouTube shows its bot check. Only change this if you want to force a specific proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU"
  ],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 20,
  "maxVideos": 100,
  "languages": [],
  "fallbackToAnyLanguage": true,
  "transcriptType": "any",
  "outputFormats": [
    "segments"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

## `failedVideos` (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 = {
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("smolder/youtube-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 = {
    "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU"],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("smolder/youtube-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 '{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call smolder/youtube-transcript-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,smolder/youtube-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/CK2bS9QzslpxMjSlO/builds/NWQPMdETBpRKb2xI8/openapi.json