YouTube Transcript Scraper

Get the transcript of any public YouTube video or Short, or of a whole channel or playlist, as plain text and as timestamped segments. When a video has no captions, this actor can transcribe its audio with AI, so you are not stuck with "no transcript available". Use it to summarize videos, research a niche, repurpose content, build datasets or feed an AI pipeline.

What you get

• Video links in, transcripts out. Paste video or Shorts links, or 11-character video ids, and get each video's full text.
• Whole channels. Add a channel (@handle, link or UC… id) and pick the tab (videos, Shorts or live streams) and the order (newest, most popular or oldest). The actor transcribes up to the number of videos you set.
• Playlists. Add a playlist link or PL… id to transcribe its videos.
• AI transcription when there are no captions. Or choose Captions only to skip those videos and never pay for AI transcription.
• Long videos are fine. Multi-hour podcasts and streams come back whole.
• Timestamps. Each line comes with its start time and length, or turn them off and keep just the text.
• Failed videos are free. Private, deleted or members-only videos come back as a row that says why, at no charge.

Input

Field	What it is
videoUrls	YouTube video or Shorts links, or video ids.
channels	Channels, as @handle, channel link or UC… id.
channelTab	videos (default), shorts or live.
channelSort	newest (default), popular or oldest.
playlists	Playlist links or PL… ids.
maxVideosPerSource	How many videos to transcribe from each channel or playlist (default 10).
transcriptSource	auto (captions, else AI transcription), captions (captions only), or audio (always AI).
includeTimestamps	Adds timestamped segments next to the full text (default on).

{
  "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"],
  "channels": ["@veritasium"],
  "channelTab": "videos",
  "channelSort": "newest",
  "maxVideosPerSource": 10,
  "transcriptSource": "auto",
  "includeTimestamps": true
}

Output

One row per video. A real row, shortened:

{
  "inputUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "platform": "youtube",
  "videoId": "jNQXAC9IVRw",
  "title": "Me at the zoo",
  "author": "jawed",
  "publishedAt": null,
  "plays": null,
  "durationSeconds": 19,
  "language": "en",
  "transcriptSource": "captions",
  "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 …",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 1.2, "duration": 2.16, "text": "All right, so here we are, in front of the\nelephants" },
    { "start": 5.318, "duration": 2.656, "text": "the cool thing about these guys is that they\nhave really..." }
  ],
  "status": "ok"
}

Videos that came from a channel or playlist also carry their view count in plays, and publishedAt when YouTube's listing shows a date (approximate for older videos, since YouTube only says "2 years ago"). A video that could not be transcribed has "status": "failed" with an errorCode (for example private, members_only or no_captions) and an errorMessage, and costs nothing. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.

Pricing

Pay per event, only for transcripts you receive:

• Transcript: one per video whose transcript came from its captions. Most YouTube videos have captions, so this is what you will mostly pay.
• AI transcription: one per started 5 minutes of audio, only for videos without captions (or every video, if you choose "Always AI transcription"). A 20-minute video is four.

Failures, channel and playlist listings, and links that are not YouTube videos are never charged. Set a maximum charge for a run in its options and the actor stops before going over it.

Other platforms

• TikTok Transcript Scraper: videos and whole profiles.
• Instagram Transcript Scraper: Reels and profiles.

Using it from code or an AI assistant

This actor runs on TranscriptFetch, a transcript API for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. If you would rather call it directly, TranscriptFetch has a REST API, an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT, and a no-code dashboard: see transcriptfetch.com/docs.

FAQ

Which languages are supported? Captions come in the language of the caption track YouTube serves for the video. AI transcription detects the spoken language by itself.

How long does it take? Caption transcripts take a few seconds each, and the actor works on several videos at once. AI transcription of a long video takes a few minutes.

Do I need a YouTube API key or account? No. The actor reads only public videos and needs nothing from you.

Is scraping YouTube transcripts legal? The actor reads only public videos. How you use the transcripts is up to you: respect copyright and the creators' rights, and check with a lawyer if you are unsure about your use.

Something went wrong? Open an issue on this actor's Issues tab and include the run's link.