YouTube Video Transcript in Any Language, bulk and fast

Get the YouTube video transcript in any language the video offers, for up to 500 videos in one run. Built for AI agents, content pipelines and bulk analysis: every row names the language it came from and lists the other languages available, with timestamped snippets, optional SRT export, and honest billing: you only pay for transcripts that are actually delivered.

Why this scraper

• Only successful results are charged. Videos without captions, deleted videos or temporary blocks show up as clear error records at no cost.
• Built for bulk. Paste up to 500 URLs or video IDs per run; every result carries the video ID so you can join it back to your own data.
• Agent-ready output. A stable, machine-readable schema (no HTML, no surprises) with explicit error codes — ideal as a tool behind an LLM or automation flow.
• Language control. Preference order (e.g. ["nl", "en"]), and manual captions are preferred over auto-generated ones whenever both exist.
• Lightweight route. This actor uses a slim API path instead of loading the full video page, which keeps it fast and keeps the price low.

Who this is for

Teams building AI tools on video content: RAG pipelines, summarisers, research assistants. Content teams repurposing video into articles and newsletters. Anyone who needs transcripts for hundreds of videos and cannot babysit a scraper.

If you need one transcript, once, a browser extension is cheaper. This actor earns its place from roughly the tenth video onwards, and from the moment reliability matters.

Who this is not for

Read this before you buy. The actor returns the captions YouTube has for a video, manual or auto-generated, in the languages YouTube offers. It does not transcribe audio itself, so a video without any caption track comes back as a free NO_TRANSCRIPT record, and it does not translate: languages picks among the tracks that exist. It also does not download the video or audio. For speech-to-text on caption-less videos you need a transcription service, not a scraper.

Input fields

Field	Type	Required or default	What it does
videos	list of text	required	YouTube video URLs (watch, shorts, youtu.be, embed) or bare 11-character video IDs. Max 500 per run.
languages	list of text	empty	Language codes in order of preference, e.g. ["en", "nl"]. Leave empty to take the original-language track.
preferManualCaptions	true/false	true	When both exist for the chosen language, take the human-made track.
includeTimestampedSnippets	true/false	true	Adds a snippets array with start time and duration per line, next to the plain text field.
includeSrt	true/false	false	Adds an srt field with a ready-to-use subtitle file per video.

Input example

{
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "https://youtu.be/JGwWNGJdvx8",
        "kJQP7kiw5Fk"
    ],
    "languages": ["en"],
    "preferManualCaptions": true,
    "includeTimestampedSnippets": true,
    "includeSrt": false
}

Accepted video formats: full watch URLs, short links (youtu.be), shorts, embeds, or bare 11-character video IDs.

Output example

Field	Type	What it holds	Example
videoId	text	The eleven-character YouTube id of the video, the key to join other data on.	JGwWNGJdvx8
title	text	The title as the uploader set it.	Ed Sheeran - Shape of You (Official Music Video)
channel	text	The channel that published the video.	Ed Sheeran
durationSeconds	number	The length of the video in seconds.	263
language	text	The caption language the transcript was taken from, as a language code.	en
languageName	text	That same caption language written out, for example "English (auto-generated)".	English
isAutoGenerated	true/false	True when the captions come from YouTube's speech recognition instead of the channel.	False
availableLanguages	list	Every caption language the video offers, so you can run again in another one.	["en", "fil"]
text	text	The full transcript of the video as one block of text.	[RINGING SOUND] [♪♪♪] ♪ The club isn't the best place to...
snippets	list	Filled when includeTimestampedSnippets is on; empty otherwise.	[{"text": "[RINGING SOUND]", "start": 1.126, "duration":...
srt	text	Filled when includeSrt is on; empty otherwise.

{
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "status": "ok",
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "channel": "Rick Astley",
    "durationSeconds": 213,
    "language": "en",
    "languageName": "English",
    "isAutoGenerated": false,
    "availableLanguages": ["de", "en", "es", "fr", "ja", "pt"],
    "text": "We're no strangers to love ...",
    "snippets": [
        {"text": "We're no strangers to love", "start": 18.88, "duration": 3.96}
    ]
}

A failed video produces an error record instead (and is not charged):

{
    "videoId": "9bZkp7q19f0",
    "status": "error",
    "errorCode": "NO_TRANSCRIPT",
    "error": "Video 9bZkp7q19f0 has no caption tracks"
}

Error codes: INVALID_VIDEO_ID, VIDEO_UNAVAILABLE, NO_TRANSCRIPT, LANGUAGE_NOT_FOUND, BLOCKED. INPUT_TRUNCATED appears once when your input is longer than this actor accepts.

Related actors from steadydata

• youtube-transcript-scraper: one video per call, in the videoUrl and data shape many workflows use
• youtube-channel-transcripts: the same transcripts for a whole channel, without making a list first
• youtube-video-details: the metadata for the same videos: views, tags, category
• youtube-channel-videos: every video of a channel, to feed this actor a list
• youtube-comments: what viewers said, without author names
• Used together with youtube-channel-videos and youtube-video-details in a recipe: YouTube metadata in bulk without the API quota.

Pricing

Pay per event: one transcript-fetched event per delivered transcript. No charge for failed videos, no charge for videos without captions, no separate platform-usage surcharge.

Free Apify plan: this actor delivers up to 25 rows per run for accounts on the Apify free plan, and then stops with a message. That limit is set by us, not by Apify. It exists so the actor keeps paying for itself for the people who do pay. Any paid Apify plan runs it at full size, billed per delivered row, with failed rows never charged.

Reviews: if this actor saves you time, a short review on this page is the one thing that helps most. Ratings are what other buyers look at first, and we have no other way to ask.

FAQ

Does it work with auto-generated captions? Yes. Set preferManualCaptions to false to take auto-generated tracks even when a manual track exists; by default manual tracks win.

Can I get subtitles as a file? Set includeSrt to true and every result carries a ready-to-use srt field.

What about very long videos? Duration does not change the price: one delivered transcript is one event.

Is personal data collected? No. The actor returns public caption text and video metadata only.

What happens when YouTube changes something? Transcript sources break from time to time; that is the nature of this work. The difference here is response: the actor is monitored daily and fixed fast, and while it is broken you are not charged, because only delivered transcripts cost anything.

What if a video has no captions at all? You get an explicit NO_TRANSCRIPT record for that video and pay nothing for it. Your run continues with the rest of the list.