YouTube Transcript Scraper — Bulk Captions & Subtitles

YouTube Transcript Scraper: bulk captions & subtitles

YouTube Transcript Scraper extracts the full transcript, captions and subtitles of any YouTube video, including Shorts and live replays, and returns them as clean, readable text, timestamped segments and ready-to-use SRT/WebVTT subtitle files. Paste one video or thousands in a single run. You get each transcript in the language spoken in the video automatically, or in any caption language the video offers, together with video details (title, channel, thumbnail, views, duration, description and tags) at no extra cost. Just $2 per 1,000 transcripts.

It runs in the cloud, needs no API key and no setup, and exports to JSON, CSV, Excel or XML. Paste your links, click Start, and get structured transcript data ready for your app, AI agent, or RAG / LLM pipeline.

What data does it extract?

Data	Details
📝 Full text	The whole transcript as one clean, continuous block of text, ready for summarizing, search or NLP
⏱️ Timestamped segments	Every caption line with its start time and duration in seconds
🎬 Subtitle files	The transcript as ready-to-use SRT and/or WebVTT subtitles
🈳 Languages	The transcript's language, whether YouTube auto-generated it, and every other caption language the video offers
📺 Video details	Title, channel name, channel URL, thumbnail, view count, duration, description, tags and live-stream status
📊 Stats	Word count (counted properly for every language, Japanese and Chinese included), character count and number of caption lines

How to scrape YouTube transcripts

1. Add your videos. Paste one or many YouTube video links (watch, youtu.be, shorts, embed or live) or bare 11-character video IDs. You get one transcript per video, and duplicate links are skipped.
2. Pick a language (optional). Leave it on Auto-detect to get the language spoken in each video, or choose any caption language. Add fallback languages to try next, in order, when a video doesn't have your first choice.
3. Choose the captions (optional). Accept any captions (human-made first), or only human-made or only auto-generated ones.
4. Choose the output (optional). Include timestamped segments, add SRT/WebVTT subtitle files, and fetch video details.
5. Click Start. Download the results from the Output tab in any format, or send them anywhere with integrations.

Input example

Send your videos as a list in videoUrls:

{
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELMSD2kdmk",
        "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID"
    ],
    "transcriptLanguage": "en",
    "fallbackLanguages": ["auto"],
    "captionType": "any",
    "includeTimestamps": true,
    "additionalFormats": ["srt"],
    "includeVideoDetails": true
}

This asks for English captions and falls back to the language spoken in the video when a video has no English track.

Output example (abridged)

{
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELMSD2kdmk",
    "videoId": "IELMSD2kdmk",
    "title": "Apache Spark in 100 Seconds",
    "channelName": "Fireship",
    "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
    "channelId": "UCsBjURrPoezykLs9EqgamOA",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/IELMSD2kdmk/sddefault.webp",
    "viewCount": 569973,
    "language": "English (auto-generated)",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "isGenerated": true,
    "durationSeconds": 199,
    "snippetCount": 101,
    "wordCount": 675,
    "characterCount": 3826,
    "text": "Apache spark an open- Source data analytics engine that can process massive streams of data from multiple sources…",
    "segments": [
        { "text": "Apache spark an open- Source data", "start": 0.32, "duration": 4.08 },
        { "text": "analytics engine that can process", "start": 2.48, "duration": 3.839 }
    ],
    "srt": "1\n00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:02,480\nApache spark an open- Source data\n\n2\n…",
    "availableLanguages": [
        { "language": "English (auto-generated)", "languageCode": "en", "isGenerated": true }
    ],
    "retrievedAt": "2026-10-24T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Every result tells you which language you got, plus every other caption language the video offers. A video that has no transcript gets its own row with an error code and a plain explanation, such as TranscriptsDisabled or NoTranscriptInLanguage, so you always know what happened to each link. The Output table shows that explanation in its Note column.

Why scrape YouTube transcripts?

• AI, RAG & LLMs: feed clean transcripts to an LLM to summarize, answer questions, generate show notes, or build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, embeddings and semantic search over video content.
• Content repurposing: turn videos into blog posts, newsletters or social media threads.
• SEO: publish transcripts to make video content indexable and searchable.
• Research & analysis: collect and text-mine spoken content at scale, across whole lists of videos.
• Accessibility & localization: generate subtitles in any caption language the video provides.
• Search archives: build a searchable database of everything said across your list of videos on a topic.

Pricing

$2 per 1,000 transcripts ($0.002 each), with video details included at no extra cost and no subscription. You pay only for the transcripts you get: videos without captions, private or unavailable videos, and languages a video doesn't have are reported for free. The run stops right at the spending limit you set, so you never pay more than you planned, and the run summary tells you how many links were left for next time.

FAQ

Do I need an API key or login?

No. The actor reads publicly available transcripts. Just provide the video links.

Do I need to set anything up?

No. Reliable access to YouTube is handled for you, with nothing to configure.

How many videos can I transcribe in one run?

As many as you like. Paste a long list and the actor works through it, up to 20 videos at a time, delivering one row per video. Rows arrive as each video finishes, so match them to your list by their url or videoId.

Which languages can I get?

Leave transcriptLanguage on Auto-detect ("auto") to get the language spoken in each video, the most reliable option since it always returns a track the video actually has. For videos with only human-made captions, such as music videos, Auto-detect picks the captions written in the same language as the video's title and description.

To request a specific language, pick it from the list or type any YouTube caption code, for example "de", "pt-BR", "zh-Hant", "es-419" or "iw" (Hebrew; "he" works too). A base language like en also matches regional tracks such as en-US or en-GB, and human-made captions are preferred over auto-generated ones. Regional Chinese codes pick the right script: zh-TW and zh-HK get Traditional Chinese, zh-CN gets Simplified. Transcripts are always genuine YouTube caption tracks, never machine translations. If a video has no captions in the language you ask for, its row carries a NoTranscriptInLanguage error listing the languages it does offer, free of charge.

Can I give a list of languages to try?

Yes. Put your first choice in transcriptLanguage and add more codes to fallbackLanguages. They are tried in order, and "auto" at the end falls back to the language spoken in the video. For example, "transcriptLanguage": "es" with "fallbackLanguages": ["en", "auto"] gives you Spanish, then English, then the original language.

Can I get only human-made or only auto-generated captions?

Yes. Set captionType to "manual" for human-made captions only, or "generated" for YouTube's auto-generated captions only. The default, "any", takes human-made captions first.

Can I get subtitle files?

Yes. Add srt and/or vtt to additionalFormats and each result includes ready-to-use subtitle text you can save as .srt or .vtt files. Auto-generated lines end where the next one begins, so they no longer overlap on screen, and human-made subtitles keep their original timing.

What kinds of links can I paste?

Standard watch URLs, youtu.be short links, Shorts, embed and live URLs, mobile and music URLs, and bare 11-character video IDs. Paste links to individual videos: each one gives you a transcript. Playlist and channel pages are listed in the results as not being single videos, free of charge.

What happens if a video has no transcript?

You get a row for it with an error code and a plain-language errorMessage, and you are not charged for it. The rest of the run carries on.

Can I run it on a schedule?

Yes. Use the Schedule option to run it on any cron expression, and pair it with webhooks or integrations to push fresh transcripts wherever you need them.

Can I call it like an API?

Yes. Start runs and fetch results with the Apify API:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('vero-api/youtube-transcript-scraper').call({
    videoUrls: ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELMSD2kdmk', 'https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Can I use it from my AI assistant?

Yes. Claude, Cursor, VS Code and any assistant that supports MCP can call it. Add this server to its MCP settings:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "youtube-transcript-scraper": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=vero-api/youtube-transcript-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Then ask, for example: "Summarize the transcripts of these three YouTube videos."

Is this an official YouTube product?

No. YouTube Transcript Scraper is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google.

Integrations

Connect YouTube Transcript Scraper to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, Slack, Airbyte, or any tool via webhooks. Developers can start runs and fetch results with the Apify API using the JavaScript or Python clients. See the API tab for ready-made code.

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Feedback and feature requests

Missing a field you need? Open an issue in the Issues tab. Feedback directly shapes what gets added next.