YouTube Transcript Extractor

Get the transcript of any YouTube video or Short as clean text, timestamped text, segments and SRT. Bulk URLs, any language, auto-translate. Pay only for transcripts you get; failed videos are free.

Open on Apify: gouda_studios/youtube-transcript-extractor

Use cases

AI agents and LLM apps that summarize or answer questions about YouTube videos
Content teams repurposing videos and Shorts into posts, newsletters and blogs
RAG pipelines and datasets built from spoken content
Exporting SRT subtitles for editing and accessibility

Pricing

Actor start: $0.0005 per run
$0.004 per transcript returned ($4.0 per 1,000)
No platform usage fee. Set maxResults to cap spend.

Input parameters

Name	Type	Default	Description
`videos`	array		Watch URLs, youtu.be links, Shorts, live or embed URLs, or bare 11-character video IDs.
`languages`	array	["en"]	Language codes in priority order, e.g. en, es, de. If none match, the first available transcript is returned.
`translateTo`	string		Language code to auto-translate the transcript into using YouTube's translation, e.g. en.
`preferManual`	boolean	true	Use manually created captions over auto-generated ones when both exist.
`includeSegments`	boolean	true	Add an array of segments with start time and duration.
`includeSrt`	boolean	false	Add an SRT subtitle file as a string.
`maxVideos`	integer	1000	Stop after this many videos.
`proxyConfiguration`	object	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Optional. Leave off to use our built-in residential proxy, included in the price. Set your own only if you want to.

Example input

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc"
  ],
  "languages": [
    "en"
  ],
  "includeSrt": false
}

Output fields (one row per transcript)

Field	Type	Description
`videoId`	string	YouTube video ID
`url`	string	Watch URL
`title`	['string', 'null']	Video title
`channel`	['string', 'null']	Channel name
`channelUrl`	['string', 'null']	Channel URL
`status`	string	ok or error
`languageCode`	string	Transcript language code
`language`	string	Transcript language name
`isGenerated`	boolean	True for auto-generated captions
`translatedTo`	['string', 'null']	Translation target if requested
`wordCount`	integer	Words in transcript
`durationSeconds`	number	End time of last caption
`text`	string	Full transcript as one string
`timestampedText`	string	Transcript lines prefixed with [m:ss]
`segments`	array	Timed caption segments {start, duration, text}
`srt`	string	SRT subtitles (if requested)
`availableLanguages`	array	All caption tracks on the video
`error`	string	Why the video failed (not charged)

Sample output row

{
  "videoId": "UF8uR6Z6KLc",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc",
  "title": "Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address",
  "channel": "Stanford",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@stanford",
  "status": "ok",
  "languageCode": "en",
  "language": "English - English",
  "isGenerated": false,
  "translatedTo": "en",
  "wordCount": 2298,
  "durationSeconds": 903.76,
  "text": "This program is brought to you by Stanford University. Please visit us at stanford.edu Thank You. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a colleg...",
  "timestampedText": "[0:07] This program is brought to you by Stanford University.\n[0:10] Please visit us at stanford.edu\n[0:22] Thank You. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement\n[0:30] from one of the fin ...",
  "availableLanguages": [
    {
      "languageCode": "ar",
      "language": "Arabic",
      "isGenerated": false
    },
    {
      "languageCode": "en",
      "language": "English (auto-generated)",
      "isGenerated": true
    },
    {
      "languageCode": "en",
      "language": "English - English",
      "isGenerated": false
    }
  ],
  "segments": [
    {
      "start": 7.47,
      "duration": 2.899,
      "text": "This program is brought to you by Stanford University."
    },
    {
      "start": 10.47,
      "duration": 3.973,
      "text": "Please visit us at stanford.edu"
    },
    {
      "start": 22.492,
      "duration": 7.527,
      "text": "Thank You. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement"
    }
  ]
}

How to call

Apify API (synchronous, returns dataset items)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/gouda_studios~youtube-transcript-extractor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc"], "languages": ["en"], "includeSrt": false}'

Apify MCP server

Connect an MCP client to https://mcp.apify.com and add the actor gouda_studios/youtube-transcript-extractor, for example https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=gouda_studios/youtube-transcript-extractor.

Agentic payments (x402 / Skyfire)

This actor is eligible for Apify agentic payments, so an AI agent can pay per run without an Apify account. See Apify x402 docs.

Machine-readable: /tools/youtube-transcript-extractor.json

Contact: m0f@mail.grokbot.com | Machine-readable: llms.txt, llms-full.txt, tools.json, openapi.json | Source: GitHub