YouTube Transcript Scraper & API - Transcripts + Comments
Pricing
from $2.00 / 1,000 transcripts
YouTube transcript API and scraper: get transcripts, captions and subtitles in the language you choose from videos, channels, playlists or search, plus top comments. Timestamped segments, text or markdown chunks for AI, RAG, n8n and MCP. No-caption videos are free. $0.80 per 1,000 transcripts.
All notable changes to the YouTube Transcript Scraper & API Actor (superxcoder/youtube-transcripts-scraper, ID zQzLQ5by5PAKCBrfj).
Newest first. Dates are commit dates. Commit hashes refer to this repository. Platform build numbers are given where the docs record them.
Comment; the Actor
charged comment, which the platform treats as an unknown event (logged, nothing charged). Event names are now
resolved against the configured pricing without regard to case or spaces (resolveEventName in
src/prices.ts), for charging, budgeting and the setup check. Tests use the live configuration.transcript $0.002 and Comment $0.0005. latest moved from
0.1.8 to 0.2.4 (scripts/set-latest.mjs), because Store users were getting 0.1.8.transcript $0.002), comments unchanged ($0.0005), in README,
.actor/actor.json, .actor/pay_per_event.json and PRICES_USD (owner-approved 2026-10-24). No behaviour change:
the Actor reads live prices from the platform.scripts/cloud-release-test.mjs test P, the priced test: refuses to start unless the platform pricing is
exactly transcript 0.002 + comment 0.0005; then checks platform chargedEventCounts against the delivered
rows, the $0.10 limit, the budget stop and duplicate handling.scripts/build-info.mjs (read-only: pricing, tags, build details) and scripts/set-latest.mjs (moves latest
only with CONFIRM=yes and a SUCCEEDED build).transport.events.playerBotCheck) and the run fails with "YouTube blocked every request (N bot checks,
...)".BLOCKED rows, geo-restricted videos free
GEO_RESTRICTED rows, billing tally = ok rows. Region coverage varies with the random proxy country (5 vs 9 of the
same 15 geo-restricted).src/video.ts updated.Access policy: YouTube's refusals are accepted, not worked around.
BotCheckError: the video is not retried, the session (proxy IP)
is not retired to get a new one, and no other player client is tried. The video gets a free error row with
errorCode: "BLOCKED". The same applies to listing and comment pages (a comments bot check keeps the transcript
row and fills commentsError). Before: session retired, retried up to maxRetries times from new IPs, and the
next player client was tried after a bot check.CaptionAccessError (caption URLs answer with an empty body) is no longer retried
on a new session; the row is CAPTIONS_NEED_PO_TOKEN. The empty caption body is now a CaptionAccessError
inside the transport too.GEO_RETRIES); they now get a GEO_RESTRICTED row at once. A user-chosen proxy country still applies.HTTP_ERROR/UNKNOWN_ERROR), not BLOCKED.blocked is 0 (never retried).pricingProblems in src/prices.ts): a run fails before scraping anything when the Actor's
pricing contains a priced apify-default-dataset-item event, because the platform would then bill every row,
including free ones. A missing transcript or comment event is logged as an error.scripts/cloud-release-test.mjs cases D (geo/no-caption videos of test C plus ok videos) and E (datacenter IPs,
bot-check path).ACTOR_STARTED_AT.scripts/cloud-release-test.mjs (one pinned-build run at a time, verifies rows, segments, billing tally and
cost) and scripts/actor-info.mjs (read-only Actor state).stress/results-cloud/2026-10-24/REPORT.md.Production pass. Breaking output change (the Actor is private and unpublished, so no users are affected): field names now follow the spec.
B4PIKXPBn4uJ01Fst (build 0.1.8), was started with timeoutSecs: 50 by
the stress case final-platform-timeout-hardkill on purpose. It delivered 8 rows (all ok, 40 comments) and its
RUN-SUMMARY matched the dataset.maxConcurrency (9.4 videos/min in that run).url -> videoUrl, channel -> channelName, error -> errorCode + errorMessage,
transcript[{start,dur,text}] -> segments[{startSeconds,durationSeconds,text}], isAutoGenerated ->
transcriptType (manual | auto_generated), scrapedAt -> collectedAt, chunk start/end ->
startSeconds/endSeconds.transcriptAvailable, segmentCount, commentsError (comment problems no longer go into the
error field of an ok row).maxVideos is now maxItems (the old name is still read).errorCode on every non-ok row: NO_CAPTIONS, AUTO_CAPTIONS_EXCLUDED, EMPTY_CAPTION_TRACK,
LANGUAGE_NOT_AVAILABLE, VIDEO_UNAVAILABLE, LOGIN_REQUIRED, LIVE_STREAM, GEO_RESTRICTED, BLOCKED, RATE_LIMITED,
CAPTIONS_NEED_PO_TOKEN, TIMEOUT, NETWORK_ERROR, HTTP_ERROR, UNKNOWN_ERROR.includeTimestamps ([mm:ss] text lines in transcriptText), includeMetadata (off skips the residential
WEB player call and the date lookup), videoTimeoutSecs (per-attempt limit, default 120; each HTTP request gets
at most a third of it, capped at 30 s), maxRetries (default 6).src/reliability.ts: exponential backoff with equal jitter by failure kind (bot check 0.25-1.5 s, 429 1-30 s,
timeout/network/HTTP 0.5-8 s, PO token none), never sleeping past the timeout self-stop.ACTOR_TIMEOUT_AT minus 5-15 s): no new deliveries, the one in flight
finishes, STATE and RUN-SUMMARY (status: "timed_out") are saved, the status message says how many videos were
delivered and how many found videos were left (not charged). A timeout before any row fails the run.reliability: retries by kind, timeouts, backoff time, per-video time (avg/p50/p95/max),
videos/min.normalizeSegments): times finite and never negative, invisible characters stripped,
empty lines dropped, stable sort by start time.scripts/bench-local.mjs (13 local scenarios with live videos, peak RSS, stress checker);
scripts/list-runs.mjs, inspect-run.mjs, run-costs.mjs (read-only platform run history, logs and costs).test/round3.test.ts (46 tests) and schema tests that require the dataset schema to list exactly the
keys of a row. Vitest 313/313.maxVideos lost their limit: the platform fills in maxItems' schema default (1000),
which won. The smaller of the two now applies.isAutoGenerated, transcript, channel).maxConcurrency (autoscaledPoolOptions.desiredConcurrency); it still scales down
when overloaded. Local: 20 videos in 2.5 s at c10 (was ~5 s at every concurrency).scripts/stress-run.mjs) reads the new field names and also checks errorCode /
transcriptAvailable consistency and segment order..actor/actor.json version 0.2.CLAUDE.md: current state, how it works, source map, open items.CHANGELOG.md: this file, covering every commit since the scaffold.scripts/stress-kill-resume.mjs: versioned kill-and-resume billing check. Round 3: killed after 40 rows, resumed to 60 unique rows, 58 transcripts and 250 comments charged, no duplicates.scripts/stress-edge.mjs runs budget cases with local pay-per-event and the case's max total charge (unitPrices: $1 per event, else real prices).scripts/stress-edge.mjs takes CASES_FILE and OUT, so it can run the cases-final-* rounds.scripts/stress-run.mjs check() assumed outputFormat: "both" when the input had none. The Actor's default is text since the UX pass, so 3 regression cases were wrongly flagged "transcript empty".CLAUDE.md with the Actor's purpose, demand background and folder rules.src/video.ts is async; ESLint ignores stress result files.Code review round 2 (3 reviewers, 25 findings) and the one failed regression case (platform-abort-graceful).
CaptionAccessError (one retry, then an error row) instead of a false no_captions row. availableLanguages keeps the first client's list.aborting handler and the timeout timer close billing and wait for the delivery in flight before STATE and RUN-SUMMARY are written. Nothing is pushed or charged after the summary, and a resurrected run never bills a row twice.addRequests throws while migrating, so a listing page whose videos were not enqueued stays unhandled and runs again after resume; its claims and per-source counts are given back (state.unclaim).next request is bounded by the handler deadline. A failed continuation or "newest" sort keeps the comments already fetched and notes "comments stopped early" in error.STATE (state.addCharged), so a migrated run reports billing for the whole run.skipVideosWithoutCaptions), saving residential traffic.test/round2.test.ts, test/round2-state.test.ts. Vitest 265/265.src/prices.ts reads live prices for the logs and RUN-SUMMARY.src/lifecycle.ts: migration and timeout handling.stress/cases-final-edge.json, cases-final-load.json, cases-final-regression.json (first committed as WIP in a23497d).lifecycle, prices, pricing, schemas; srv1 and json3 pair fixtures.languageMatch is honest for the human-made fallback track.outputFormat is now text.xufGuEafacc6bvcqx (1024 MB, 40 s) SUCCEEDED: 7 rows (5 ok, 1 no_captions, 1 unavailable), billing equal to the dataset, no comments billed on non-ok rows. Cost $0.0023.stress/results-* added to .prettierignore; stress case files formatted.STATUS.md (verdict: ready as a private Actor).resolve_url hop), e.g. @LuisitoComunica.deliver() serialised so the budget is never exceeded; dedupe before delivery; comment paging deadline.ok rows; fail loud when no video lists any caption track.scripts/sanitize-fixtures.mjs: fixtures carry no commenter handles or visitor tokens.STRESS-REPORT.md.scripts/stress-functional.mjs, stress-edge.mjs, stress-load.mjs with their case files and pre-fix reports under stress/results-*.Modules M1-M6 from PLAN.md integrated.
src/innertube.ts, src/http.ts): IOS/ANDROID/ANDROID_VR mobile players, WEB player for metadata, residential video pool and datacenter discovery pool, block detection, field masks.src/transcript.ts): caption parsing, language selection with fallback (original / any / none), plain text and markdown chunks with deep links.src/parse.ts, src/listing.ts): player, next, comments, channel tabs, playlists, search (old and new renderers).src/billing.ts, src/state.ts): pay-per-event, never bills non-ok rows, budget-aware comment truncation, persisted run state.src/main.ts, src/routes.ts, src/video.ts): BasicCrawler router, fail loud, aborting handler, RUN-SUMMARY.scripts/stress-run.mjs and stress/cases.json.PLAN.md.src/types.ts), input normalisation (src/input.ts), input schema, PPE pricing (no start fee), starter dataset and output schemas.scripts/probe-proxy.mjs, probe-web.mjs, capture-fixtures.mjs.AGENTS.md.