YouTube Transcript Scraper: per video, drop-in input

YouTube transcript with timestamps for any video URL, in the caption language you pick, or the original language when that track is missing. Same videoUrl and targetLanguage input and the same data rows (start, dur, text) as the popular per-video transcript actor, plus the full text. Pay per video.

Why this scraper

• Drop-in for per-video workflows. Send videoUrl and targetLanguage, get back one row with data: lines of start, dur and text, the times as strings with three decimals. n8n, Make and Zapier steps and scripts built on that shape keep working when you change only the actor ID to steadydata/youtube-transcript-scraper.
• Measured, not promised. On 03-10-2026 a platform run over 24 popular videos delivered 23 transcripts; the 24th has no captions at all and came back as a free error row.
• The full text too. Next to the lines, every row carries text (the whole transcript in one string), the title, channel, length, the language delivered and every caption language the video has.
• Batches when you want them. videoUrls takes up to 500 videos in one run, one row each; leave it empty and the actor behaves like a single-video call.
• Only delivered transcripts are charged. Private, removed or caption-less videos come back as free error rows with the reason.

Who this is for

• Automations that fetch one transcript per new video (n8n, Make, Zapier, webhooks).
• RAG and AI agent pipelines that need timestamped text to cite or chunk.
• Content teams repurposing videos into posts, show notes and subtitles.

Who this is not for

Read this before you buy. This actor does not machine-translate. When a video has a caption track in the language you ask for, you get it; when it has none, you get the transcript in the video's original language and the row says requestedLanguageMissing: true. We tested YouTube's own translation route and it was blocked for 22 of 24 videos, so we do not sell it. Videos without any captions (no uploaded subtitles and no automatic captions) cannot be transcribed here: this actor reads captions, it does not listen to audio.

Input fields

Field	Type	Required or default	What it does
videoUrl	text		A YouTube video URL (watch, youtu.be, shorts, embed) or an 11-character video ID.
targetLanguage	text (en, pt, es, fr, de, it, ja, ko, zh, ru, ar, hi, nl, pl, tr, vi, id, th, sv, da, no, fi, cs, hu, ro, uk, el, he, fa, bn, ta, te, mr, ur, gu, kn, ml, pa, sr, hr, bg, sk, lt, lv, et, sl, ca, af, sq, am, hy, az, eu, be, bs, my, ceb, zh-Hans, zh-Hant, co, eo, fil, fy, gl, ka, ht, ha, haw, hmn, is, ig, ga, jv, kk, km, rw, ku, ky, lo, la, lb, mk, mg, ms, mt, mi, mn, ne, ny, or, ps, sm, gd, sn, sd, si, so, st, su, sw, tg, tt, tk, ug, uz, cy, xh, yi, yo, zu)	required	The language you want the transcript in. When the video has a caption track in that language you get it; when it has none you get the original-language transcript, and the row says so (requestedLanguageMissing). No machine translation.
videoUrls	list of text		Extra videos for the same run, one row each, up to 500 in total. Leave empty to work exactly like a single-video run.

Input example

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELMSD2kdmk",
  "targetLanguage": "en"
}

A batch in one run:

{
  "targetLanguage": "en",
  "videoUrls": ["https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ", "jNQXAC9IVRw"]
}

Output example

Field	Type	What it holds	Example
videoUrl	text	The video's watch URL, also when the input was a bare ID or a short link.	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELMSD2kdmk
targetLanguage	text	The language that was asked for.	en
data	list	The transcript as lines, each with start and dur (seconds, as text with three decimals) and the text: the same shape as the other actor.	[{"start": "0.280", "dur": "4.440", "text": "first line o...
videoId	text	YouTube's 11-character video ID.
title	text	The video title as the channel wrote it.
channel	text	The name of the channel that published the video.
durationSeconds	number	Length of the video in seconds.
language	text	Language code of the transcript that was delivered.	en
isAutoGenerated	true/false	True when the captions are YouTube's automatic speech recognition, false for uploaded captions.	True
requestedLanguageMissing	true/false	True when the video has no caption track in the asked language; the row then holds the original-language transcript (see language).	False
availableLanguages	list	Every caption language the video has.	["en"]
text	text	The whole transcript as one text, ready for an LLM or a search index.

A real row from a run on 03-10-2026, asking Dutch for a video that only has English and German captions (lines shortened to three):

{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "targetLanguage": "nl",
  "data": [
    {"start": "1.200", "dur": "2.160", "text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants"},
    {"start": "5.318", "dur": "2.656", "text": "the cool thing about these guys is that they have really..."},
    {"start": "7.974", "dur": "4.642", "text": "really really long trunks"}
  ],
  "videoId": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "title": "Me at the zoo",
  "channel": "jawed",
  "durationSeconds": 19,
  "language": "en",
  "isAutoGenerated": false,
  "requestedLanguageMissing": true,
  "availableLanguages": ["de", "en"],
  "text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants the cool thing about these guys is that they have really... really really long trunks",
  "status": "ok"
}

Related actors from steadydata

• youtube-transcript-bulk: transcripts for hundreds of videos with SRT output
• youtube-channel-transcripts: every transcript of a whole channel
• youtube-video-details: views, tags and category of the same video

Pricing

Pay per event: one transcript-fetched event per delivered transcript, whatever its length. No charge for videos without captions, private or removed videos, and 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. Any paid Apify plan runs it at full size, billed per delivered row.

Reviews: if this actor saves you time, a short review on this page is the one thing that helps most.

FAQ

Do I have to change my workflow to switch? No: videoUrl and targetLanguage are the same fields, and data holds the same start, dur and text lines. The extra fields can be ignored.

Which URL formats work? watch URLs, youtu.be links, Shorts, embeds and bare 11-character video IDs.

Why did I get another language than I asked for? The video has no caption track in that language; requestedLanguageMissing is true and availableLanguages lists what it does have.

Are automatic captions included? Yes. Uploaded captions are preferred over automatic ones in the same language; isAutoGenerated tells you which you got.

What happens when YouTube changes something? The actor is checked daily. While something is broken, failed videos are not charged.

Can I call it from my own code, like an API? Yes. Every run is available through the Apify API: start it with one HTTP request, then read the results as JSON, CSV or Excel from the dataset endpoint, or use the official Python and JavaScript clients. The input is the same JSON as in the input example above, so a scheduled script, a Make or Zapier step or an AI agent can call it without any changes.