WEBDEVELOPER TOOLS API MCP READY

YouTube Transcripts API

Transcripts, subtitles and captions from any YouTube video, Short or embed URL — with language selection, on-the-fly translation, SRT and WebVTT output, and full video metadata. A discovery mode lists what captions exist before you spend anything fetching them.

MEDIAN LAGon demand

PARAMETERS8

TOTAL USERS492

MONTHLY ACTIVE304

RUNS SUCCEEDED95.6%

RATING5.0 (5)

Input parameters

PARAMETER	TYPE	REQ	DEFAULT	DESCRIPTION
youtube_url	string | string[]	yes	—	One URL or many. Standard videos, Shorts, youtu.be, embed and m.youtube.com all work. Processed in parallel; an invalid URL is recorded as an error rather than stopping the run. — drives your bill
languages	string[]	no	[en]	Ordered ISO 639-1 preferences — the first available match wins
translate_to	string	no	—	Translate the chosen transcript. Falls back to the original if translation is unavailable, without erroring.
transcript_type	enum	no	any	any · manual (human-made only) · generated (auto-captions only)
output_formats	string[]	no	[]	Extra formats alongside the structured fields: srt, vtt, text
preserve_formatting	boolean	no	false	Keep YouTube's inline and tags instead of stripping them
list_only	boolean	no	false	Discovery mode — list available captions, their language, manual/generated status and translation targets. Not billed as a video processed.
include_metadata	boolean	no	true	Title, channel, view and like counts, duration, upload date, thumbnail, tags. Adds 1–3 s per video.

Worked examples

Single video — defaults, English

{ "youtube_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }

Batch — several URLs in parallel

{
  "youtube_url": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaaaaaaaaaa",
    "https://youtu.be/bbbbbbbbbbb",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ccccccccccc"
  ]
}

Discovery first — see what captions exist, unbilled

{
  "youtube_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "list_only": true
}

Translated subtitles — Spanish SRT from an English source

{
  "youtube_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "translate_to": "es",
  "output_formats": ["srt"]
}

Human captions only — skip auto-generated

{
  "youtube_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "transcript_type": "manual"
}

POWER-USER TIP

list_only is free reconnaissance — Discovery mode is not billed as a video processed. Run it first across a batch to see which videos actually have captions, in what languages, and which are translatable — then fetch only the ones worth fetching instead of paying for misses.

Coverage

5

URL formats accepted — watch · Shorts · youtu.be · embed · m.youtube.com

3

output formats — SRT · WebVTT · plain text, alongside the structured fields

3

transcript variants — any · manually created · auto-generated

Tasks

Saved runs with the inputs already filled in — each one a standalone page and a working configuration example.

Request a task →

Code

curl

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/johnvc~YoutubeTranscripts/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"youtube_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ","languages":["en"]}'

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("johnvc/YoutubeTranscripts").call(
    run_input={
        "youtube_url": ["https://youtu.be/aaaaaaaaaaa", "https://youtu.be/bbbbbbbbbbb"],
        "output_formats": ["srt"],
    }
)
for v in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(v.get("title"), len(v.get("non_timestamped") or ""))

What people use it for

• Feeding video content into a RAG pipeline
• Bulk subtitle generation for a channel
• Searchable archives of conference talks
• Competitive content analysis
• Accessibility and compliance workflows
• Training-data collection for language models

Alternatives

Yandex Search API — video search results rather than the captions themselvesours