YouTube Transcript Scraper Pro

Extract clean transcripts from one or many YouTube videos in a single run.

This Actor accepts YouTube video URLs or video IDs and returns transcripts in the format you need: plain text, timestamped text, SRT, VTT, JSON, CSV, or all formats at once. It prefers manually created captions when they are available and otherwise uses an auto-generated transcript.

What you get

• Bulk processing for multiple videos
• Support for standard YouTube URLs, short URLs, Shorts URLs, embed URLs, live URLs, and raw video IDs
• Automatically returns the best available transcript, preferring manually created captions when available
• Optional language setting for users who need a specific transcript language
• Structured dataset output for downstream automations
• Output format control for different workflows (LLM prep, subtitle editing, QA, analytics)
• Apify Proxy support for cloud runs where YouTube blocks datacenter IPs

Input

videos (required)

List of YouTube videos.

Supported values:

• Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Watch URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Short URL: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Shorts URL: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Embed URL: https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Live URL: https://www.youtube.com/live/dQw4w9WgXcQ

type (optional)

Output format for transcript.

Allowed values:

• plain (default)
• timestamped
• srt
• vtt
• json
• csv
• all

language (optional)

Leave empty to return the best available transcript in any language. If you enter a language code such as en, es, or de, the Actor will try to return that language and otherwise report which languages are available.

keepMusicMarkers (optional)

• Type: boolean
• Default: false
• When false, markers like [Music] are removed.

dropEmpty (optional)

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Removes empty transcript segments after cleanup.

maxConcurrency (optional)

• Type: integer
• Default: 3
• Range: 1 to 10
• Controls how many videos are processed in parallel.

maxRetries (optional)

• Type: integer
• Default: 2
• Range: 0 to 5
• Retries transient transcript request failures.

proxyConfiguration (optional)

• Type: object
• Default: Apify Proxy with the RESIDENTIAL group
• YouTube often blocks cloud datacenter IPs, so proxy use is recommended for Apify platform runs. You can disable it for local/direct runs if transcript requests work without a proxy.

Output

Each dataset item contains:

• recordType (transcript or error)
• success (boolean)
• originalInput (string)
• videoId (string)
• videoUrl (string)
• languageCode (string or null)
• languageName (string or null)
• isGenerated (boolean or null)
• isTranslatable (boolean or null)
• outputFormat (string)
• transcript (string, array, object, or null depending on type)
• segments (array or null)
• segmentCount (integer)
• availableLanguages (array)
• errorMessage (string or null)
• scrapedAt (UTC timestamp)

If a video fails, the item is still returned with:

• success: false
• transcript: ""
• errorMessage explaining the failure

Example input

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "M7FIvfx5J10"
  ],
  "type": "all",
  "language": "",
  "keepMusicMarkers": false,
  "dropEmpty": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 4,
  "maxRetries": 2,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Example output item

{
  "recordType": "transcript",
  "success": true,
  "originalInput": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "languageCode": "en",
  "languageName": "English",
  "isGenerated": false,
  "isTranslatable": true,
  "outputFormat": "all",
  "transcript": {
    "plain": "Never gonna give you up...",
    "timestamped": "00:00:01.200 Never gonna give you up...",
    "srt": "1\\n00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:03,800\\nNever gonna give you up...",
    "vtt": "WEBVTT\\n\\n00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:03.800\\nNever gonna give you up...",
    "json": [
      {
        "text": "Never gonna give you up...",
        "start": 1.2,
        "duration": 2.6
      }
    ],
    "csv": "start,duration,text\\n1.2,2.6,\"Never gonna give you up...\""
  },
  "segmentCount": 42,
  "errorMessage": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-22T12:34:56Z"
}

Typical use cases

• Build subtitle files (srt or vtt) for editing or publishing
• Prepare clean text for AI/LLM pipelines (plain or json)
• Create timestamped transcripts for compliance or QA reviews
• Batch-export transcripts for research and analytics

Notes

• The Actor deduplicates repeated video IDs in one run.
• Transcript availability depends on whether subtitles exist for a given video.
• Leave language empty for the simplest and most reliable result. The Actor will choose a manually created transcript when available, otherwise an auto-generated transcript.
• For best throughput on larger batches, increase maxConcurrency gradually.