YouTube Transcript Scraper - Apify Actor

A powerful Apify actor that extracts transcripts/subtitles from YouTube videos along with basic video details such as title, description, keywords, thumbnails, views, etc

Features

• ✅ Extract transcripts from YouTube videos
• ✅ Support for multiple languages
• ✅ Automatic and manual transcript detection
• ✅ Multiple output formats (JSON, SRT, WebVTT, Text)
• ✅ Proxy support for IP blocking issues
• ✅ Comprehensive error handling
• ✅ Batch processing of multiple videos
• ✅ State persistence for long-running jobs

Input Configuration

The actor accepts the following input parameters:

Required Parameters

• urls (array): Array of YouTube video URLs to process

  {
    "urls": [
      {
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID",
      }
    ]
  }
  

Optional Parameters

• languages (array): Language codes in priority order (default: ["en"])
• outputFormat (string): Output format - json, srt, webvtt, text (default: json)

Supported URL Formats

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID

Output

The actor outputs data in the following format:

{
	"inputUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neabI31ofMc",
	"language": "English (auto-generated)",
	"languageCode": "en",
	"isGenerated": true,
	"transcript": [
		{
			"text": "today I'm going to show you all the",
			"start": 0.04,
			"duration": 3.359
		},
		{
			"text": "things that can help suppress your",
			"start": 1.36,
			"duration": 4.64
		},
		{
			"text": "appetite and this is backed up by",
			"start": 3.399,
			"duration": 4.081
		},
		{
			"text": "science you ever wonder how some people",
			"start": 6,
			"duration": 3.28
		},
		"more items.."
	],
	"snippetCount": 185,
	"videoDetails": {
		"videoId": "neabI31ofMc",
		"title": "BETTER Than Ozempic! STOP Your Cravings",
		"lengthSeconds": "412",
		"keywords": [
			"appetite suppressant",
			"natural appetite suppresants",
			"food that curb hunger",
			"best foods to suppress appetite",
			"foods that reduce cravings",
			"hunger control foods",
			"foods that make you feel full",
			"protein-rich foods",
			"curb hunger",
			"reduce cravings",
			"hunger control",
			"weight loss tips",
			"best appetite suppressant",
			"hunger suppressant",
			"suppress appetite naturally",
			"appetite suppressants",
			"how to suppress your appetite",
			"how to stop hunger cravings",
			"stop cravings",
			"dr eric berg",
			"eric berg",
			"ozempic"
		],
		"channelId": "UC3w193M5tYPJqF0Hi-7U-2g",
		"isOwnerViewing": false,
		"shortDescription": "Avoiding cravings is not up to sheer willpower. In this video, I’ll share the foods and habits that act as natural appetite suppressants to stop hunger and reduce cravings. Discover the best foods to suppress your appetite naturally so you can lose weight, feel good, and look good! \n\nAvoid ultra-processed foods with the Dr. Berg Junk Food Meter App: <continues...>",
		"isCrawlable": true,
		"thumbnail": {
			"thumbnails": [
				{
					"url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/neabI31ofMc/default.webp",
					"width": 120,
					"height": 90
				},
				{
					"url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/neabI31ofMc/mqdefault.webp",
					"width": 320,
					"height": 180
				},
				{
					"url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/neabI31ofMc/hqdefault.webp",
					"width": 480,
					"height": 360
				},
				{
					"url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/neabI31ofMc/sddefault.webp",
					"width": 640,
					"height": 480
				}
			]
		},
		"allowRatings": true,
		"viewCount": "1088282",
		"author": "Dr. Eric Berg DC",
		"isPrivate": false,
		"isUnpluggedCorpus": false,
		"isLiveContent": false
	}
}

Output Formats

JSON Format (Default)

[
  {
    "text": "Hello, welcome to this video",
    "start": 0.0,
    "duration": 2.5
  },
  {
    "text": "Today we'll be discussing...",
    "start": 2.5,
    "duration": 3.2
  }
]

Usage Examples

Basic Usage

{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    }
  ],
  "langauges": ["en"],
  "outputFormat": "txt"
}

Multiple Languages with Fallback

{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
      "languages": ["es", "en", "fr"]
    }
  ]
}

Batch Processing

{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO1",
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO2",
    },
    {
      "url": "https://youtu.be/VIDEO3",
    }
  ]
}

Error Handling

The actor handles various error scenarios:

• UrlNotSupported: Invalid or unsupported URL format
• VideoIdNotFound: Could not extract video ID from URL
• TranscriptNotFound: Subtitles are disabled for the video
• AgeRestricted: Video is age-restricted

Proxy Support

The actor includes built-in proxy support to handle IP blocking issues:

Language Codes

Common language codes supported by YouTube:

• en - English
• es - Spanish
• fr - French
• de - German
• it - Italian
• pt - Portuguese
• ru - Russian
• ja - Japanese
• ko - Korean
• zh - Chinese
• ar - Arabic
• hi - Hindi

Limitations

• Some videos may not have transcripts available
• Age-restricted videos require authentication

Youtube transcript API

The actor stores results in a dataset. You can export data in various formats such as CSV, JSON, XLS, etc. You can scrape and access data on demand using API. For more information, Go to Youtube transcript scraper API integration page

How much will it cost me to scrape Youtube transcripts ?

This scraper costs $0.3 per thousand Youtube transcripts You can scrape upto 16,000 Youtube comments per month with Apify starter plan

Is it legal to scrape Youtube ?

Our scrapers are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses, gender, or location. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our scrapers, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe. However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers. You can also read our blog post on the legality of web scraping

Your feedback

We’re always working on improving the performance of our Actors. So if you’ve got any technical feedback for this scraper or simply found a bug, please create an issue on the actor’s Issues tab in Apify Console