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YouTube Transcript API

Extract transcripts (subtitles) from any YouTube video in seconds. Just provide a video ID or full URL — the Actor returns the complete transcript with timestamps, video metadata, and multilingual support.

What does it do?

This Actor extracts the full transcript from any YouTube video. No configuration, no API keys — just pass a video link and get structured data back.

Supported input formats:

• Full YouTube URLs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
• Short URLs (https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)
• Embed URLs (https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ)
• Plain video IDs (dQw4w9WgXcQ)

How to use

1. Open this Actor on Apify
2. Enter a YouTube video ID or URL
3. Click Start
4. Get the transcript in the Dataset tab

Input

Example input:

{
"videoId":"dQw4w9WgXcQ"
}

Output

The Actor saves results to the default dataset. Each result contains rich video metadata and transcripts in multiple formats.

Response structure

Video info fields

Transcript formats

Each language contains up to 3 transcript formats:

Every transcript segment has:

Example output (shortened)

{
"videoId":"dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"originalInput":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"videoInfo":{
"name":"Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video)",
"author":"Rick Astley",
"channel_id":"UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
"duration":"213",
"embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"thumbnailUrl":{
"hqdefault":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg",
"maxresdefault":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg"
},
"description":"",
"upload_date":"",
"genre":""
},
"language_code":[
{"code":"en","name":"English"}
],
"transcripts":{
"en":{
"default":[
{"start":"00:00:19","end":"00:00:22","text":"We're no strangers to love"},
{"start":"00:00:23","end":"00:00:27","text":"You know the rules and so do I"},
{"start":"00:00:27","end":"00:00:31","text":"A full commitment's what I'm thinking of"}
],
"auto":[
{"start":"00:00:19","end":"00:00:22","text":"We're no strangers to love"},
{"start":"00:00:23","end":"00:00:27","text":"You know the rules and so do I"}
],
"custom":[
{
"start":"00:00:01",
"end":"00:00:49",
"text":"We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment's what I'm thinking of..."
}
]
}
}
}

Use cases

• AI & LLM pipelines — feed video transcripts into GPT, Claude, or other models for summarization, Q&A, or analysis
• Content research — quickly extract what's said in a video without watching it
• SEO & marketing — repurpose video content into blog posts, articles, or social media
• Accessibility — get text versions of video content
• Data analysis — analyze large volumes of video content at scale
• Education — extract lecture transcripts for study notes or translations

Integrations

Connect this Actor with other tools and platforms:

• Apify API — call the Actor programmatically from any language
• Zapier / Make — trigger the Actor and send results to Google Sheets, Slack, email, etc.
• Webhooks — get notified when a run finishes

API usage

Call this Actor via the Apify API:

curl"https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~youtube-transcript-scraper/runs"\
-X POST \
-H"Content-Type: application/json"\
-H"Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"\
-d'{"videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ"}'

Pricing

Your first run is free. After that, usage is based on the Apify platform subscription — see Apify pricing for details. Each run uses minimal compute resources and typically completes in under 10 seconds.

Limitations

• Transcripts are only available for videos that have subtitles (auto-generated or manual)
• Private or age-restricted videos may not be accessible