YouTube Transcript Scraper

Get the transcript of any public YouTube video as plain text and as timestamped segments. Paste video URLs, or a channel or playlist URL, and get one dataset row per video. You pay only for videos where a transcript was found.

📄 Example output

One row for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ (text and segments shortened):

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "lengthSeconds": 213,
  "language": "en",
  "captionType": "manual",
  "text": "[♪♪♪] ♪ We're no strangers to love ♪ ♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪ ♪ A full commitment's what I'm thinking of ♪ ...",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 1.36, "duration": 1.68, "text": "[♪♪♪]" },
    { "start": 18.64, "duration": 3.24, "text": "♪ We're no strangers to love ♪" },
    { "start": 22.64, "duration": 4.32, "text": "♪ You know the rules and so do I ♪" }
  ],
  "segmentCount": 61,
  "status": "ok",
  "reason": null
}

💡 Common uses

• Feed transcripts to LLMs and RAG pipelines.
• Download the subtitles of a whole channel or playlist as text for research or analysis.
• Turn videos into text for summaries, notes, articles or translation.
• Use it as a YouTube transcript API from your code through the Apify API.

📊 What you can extract

Field	Description
videoId	11-character YouTube video ID.
url	Standard watch URL of the video.
title	Video title.
channelName	Name of the channel that published the video.
channelId	Channel ID, starts with UC.
lengthSeconds	Video length in seconds.
language	Language code of the transcript you got, for example en or de-DE.
captionType	manual for subtitles added by the author, auto for automatic captions made by YouTube.
text	Full transcript as one string.
segments	List of {start, duration, text}. Times are in seconds.
segmentCount	Number of segments.
status	ok, no_captions, unavailable or error. See Statuses.
reason	Why there is no transcript. null when the status is ok.

🚀 How to use

1. Open the Actor and fill in the input, or paste JSON in the JSON tab.
2. Click Start.
3. Open the Output tab when the run finishes and download the results.

A list of videos. Any URL form works: watch, youtu.be, Shorts, embed, live, mobile, or a bare video ID.

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/l6USUAIKJls",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AO23am9UvjQ"
  ]
}

The 20 latest videos of a channel:

{
  "channelOrPlaylistUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/@lexfridman"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 20
}

A playlist, with each transcript in the original language of the video:

{
  "channelOrPlaylistUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4"],
  "maxVideosPerSource": 100,
  "language": "original"
}

You can combine videos, channels and playlists in one run. If the same video appears twice, it is processed once.

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
videos	array of strings	empty	Video URLs or IDs.
channelOrPlaylistUrls	array of strings	empty	Channel URLs (@handle, /channel/UC..., /c/..., /user/...) or playlist URLs. For a channel, the latest uploads are taken first.
maxVideosPerSource	integer	50	How many videos to take from each channel or playlist.
language	string	en	Preferred subtitle language as an ISO code, or original. See Language selection.
maxConcurrency	integer	5	How many videos are processed in parallel, from 1 to 20.

💰 Pricing

$1.50 per 1,000 videos with a transcript ($0.0015 per video).

Each run also has a start fee of $0.00005 (5 cents per 1,000 runs).

Videos without subtitles, unavailable videos and errors are free. For example, 10,000 videos with a transcript cost $15.

You can set a maximum cost per run in Apify. When the run reaches it, the Actor stops and keeps the results it already has.

🌍 Language selection

For each video the Actor picks one subtitle track in this order:

1. Manual subtitles in your language.
2. Automatic captions in your language.
3. Manual subtitles in the original language of the video.
4. Automatic captions in the original language of the video.

A language code also matches its regional variants: en matches en-US and en-GB.

Set language to original (or leave it empty) to skip steps 1 and 2 and always get the transcript in the language the video is spoken in.

The language field in the output shows which track you got. If a video has no subtitles in your language, you get the original language instead.

✅ Statuses

Status	Meaning
ok	Transcript found. This is the only status you pay for.
no_captions	The video is available but has no subtitles or automatic captions.
unavailable	The video is private, deleted, age-restricted, members-only or not playable. reason has the message from YouTube.
error	The input is not a valid video, channel or playlist URL, the channel or playlist was not found, or the video could not be fetched. reason explains which.

If a run gets no transcripts at all, the dataset gets one extra row with status set to run_summary. Its reason and counts fields show how many videos ended with each status.

❓ FAQ

Does it work with YouTube Shorts? Yes. Paste the Shorts URL like any other video.

Do I need a YouTube API key or a Google login? No. The Actor works with public videos only and needs no keys or accounts.

Can it translate transcripts? Not yet. Translation is planned. Today you get the transcript in your language if the video has it, otherwise in the original language.

What about private and age-restricted videos? They are not supported. You get a row with status unavailable and the reason from YouTube. These rows are free.

How do I export the results? Open the run's dataset and download it as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML. You can also read the dataset through the Apify API or send it to other tools with Apify integrations.