Youtube Transcript API

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Why YouTubeTranscript.dev?

Most YouTube transcript tools break when videos don't have captions. We don't. Our API extracts existing captions and transcribes directly from audio using AI speech recognition — covering 100% of YouTube videos.

• ⚡ Lightning fast — Cached transcripts return in under 2 seconds
• 🎙 Audio transcription (ASR) — No captions? We transcribe from the audio track
• 🌍 100+ languages — Multilingual support with on-demand translation
• 📤 Multiple formats — Timestamps, paragraphs, word-level output
• 📚 Batch processing — Up to 100 videos per request
• 🔔 Webhooks — Async processing with delivery to your endpoint
• 💰 Predictable pricing — 1 credit per transcript, no surprises
• 🔒 Production ready — 99.9% uptime SLA

→ Get your free API key

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API V2 Overview

V2 is the streamlined, user-owned transcript model. It prioritizes fast cache hits, consistent responses, and no surprise translations unless you explicitly request a language.

How V2 Works

1. Check your owned transcripts (0 credits) — if you've already fetched it, it's free
2. Fetch captions (1 credit) — if not owned yet
3. Translate (1 credit per 2,500 chars) — only when you request a specific language
4. ASR transcription (1 credit per 90 seconds) — async via webhook, for videos without captions

Endpoints

| Method | Endpoint | Description | |--------|----------|-------------| | POST | /api/v2/transcribe | Extract transcript from a single video | | POST | /api/v2/batch | Extract transcripts from up to 100 videos | | GET | /api/v2/jobs/{job_id} | Check status of an ASR job | | GET | /api/v2/batch/{batch_id} | Check status of a batch request |

Credit Costs

| Method | Cost | Speed | Notes | |--------|------|-------|-------| | Native Captions | 1 credit | 5–10 seconds | Best quality, exact language | | Translation | 1 credit per 2,500 chars | 5–10 seconds | Only when language is requested | | ASR (Audio) | 1 credit per 90 seconds | 2–20 minutes | Async via webhook |

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Quick Start

1. Get Your API Key

Sign up at youtubetranscript.dev and grab your API key from the Dashboard.

2. Extract a Transcript

curl -X POST https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/transcribe \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"video": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}'

3. With Options

curl -X POST https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/transcribe \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "video": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "language": "es",
    "format": "timestamp"
  }'

4. Batch Request (up to 100 videos)

curl -X POST https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/batch \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "video_ids": [
      "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
      "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID_2",
      "VIDEO_ID_3"
    ]
  }'

5. ASR with Webhook (videos without captions)

curl -X POST https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/transcribe \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "video": "VIDEO_ID",
    "source": "asr",
    "webhook_url": "https://yoursite.com/webhook"
  }'

Returns immediately with status: "processing". Results are delivered to your webhook when ready.

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Request Reference

Headers

| Header | Required | Value | |--------|----------|-------| | Authorization | Yes | Bearer YOUR_API_KEY | | Content-Type | Yes | application/json |

Request Fields

| Field | Required | Description | |-------|----------|-------------| | video | Yes (single) | YouTube URL or 11-character video ID | | video_ids | Yes (batch) | Array of IDs or URLs. Up to 100 per request | | language | No | ISO 639-1 code (e.g., "es", "fr"). Omit to get best available without translation | | source | No | auto (default), manual, or asr | | format | No | timestamp, paragraphs, or words | | webhook_url | No | URL for async delivery. Required for source="asr" |

Webhook Behavior

• Requests with webhook_url return immediately with status: "processing"
• Batch requests return cached results immediately and queue only the missing items
• Your webhook receives the final results when processing completes

Error Codes

| HTTP Status | Error Code | Description | |-------------|------------|-------------| | 400 | invalid_request | Invalid JSON or missing required fields | | 400 | invalid_parameter | Invalid video ID or parameter value | | 401 | invalid_api_key | Missing or invalid API key | | 402 | payment_required | Insufficient credits | | 404 | no_captions | No captions available and ASR not used | | 429 | rate_limit_exceeded | Too many requests, check Retry-After | | 500 | internal_error | Server error, retry with backoff |

→ Full API Documentation & OpenAPI Spec

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Examples

Install the SDK (Node.js / TypeScript)

npm install youtube-audio-transcript-api

Node.js / TypeScript (SDK)

import { YouTubeTranscript } from "youtube-audio-transcript-api";

const yt = new YouTubeTranscript({ apiKey: "your_api_key" });

// Simple — one line
const result = await yt.getTranscript("dQw4w9WgXcQ");
console.log(result.data?.transcript.text);

// With options
const translated = await yt.transcribe({
  video: "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  language: "es",
  format: { timestamp: true },
});

// Batch — up to 100 videos
const batch = await yt.batch({
  video_ids: ["dQw4w9WgXcQ", "jNQXAC9IVRw", "9bZkp7q19f0"],
});

// ASR for videos without captions
const asr = await yt.transcribe({
  video: "VIDEO_ID",
  source: "asr",
  allow_asr: true,
  webhook_url: "https://yoursite.com/webhook",
});

→ Full SDK documentation

Python

import requests

API_KEY = "your_api_key"

# Single video
response = requests.post(
    "https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/transcribe",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    json={"video": "dQw4w9WgXcQ"}
)

data = response.json()
for segment in data["data"]["transcript"]:
    print(f"[{segment['start']:.1f}s] {segment['text']}")

JavaScript / Node.js (without SDK)

const response = await fetch("https://youtubetranscript.dev/api/v2/transcribe", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ video: "dQw4w9WgXcQ" }),
});

const { data } = await response.json();
console.log(data.transcript.text);

More Examples

Check the /examples directory for complete, runnable scripts:

| Example | Description | |---------|-------------| | Basic Extraction | Extract a single video transcript | | Batch Processing | Process up to 100 videos at once | | ASR + Webhook | Transcribe videos without captions | | Translation | Get transcripts in any language | | Export Formats | Timestamps, paragraphs, word-level | | Node.js Basic | Node.js extraction example | | cURL Examples | Ready-to-run cURL commands |

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Use Cases

🤖 AI & LLM Pipelines

Feed video transcripts into GPT, Claude, or any LLM. Build RAG systems, knowledge bases, and AI assistants powered by YouTube content.

🎯 Content Repurposing

Turn YouTube videos into blog posts, social media content, newsletters, and more.

🔬 Research & Analysis

Analyze video content at scale — sentiment analysis, topic modeling, trend detection across thousands of videos.

📊 SEO & Marketing

Extract competitor video strategies, generate SEO-optimized content from videos, and analyze trends across your niche.

🎓 Education

Transcribe lectures, courses, and tutorials. Make video content searchable and accessible.

♿ Accessibility

Generate accurate captions and subtitles for videos that don't have them, in 100+ languages.

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Comparison with youtube-transcript-api (Python)

The open-source youtube-transcript-api Python package is a great tool, but it has limitations:

| | YouTubeTranscript.dev | youtube-transcript-api | |---|---|---| | Videos without captions | ✅ ASR audio transcription | ❌ Fails | | Translation | ✅ On-demand, any language | ⚠️ Limited to YouTube's translations | | Batch processing | ✅ Up to 100 videos/request | ❌ One at a time | | Caching | ✅ Owned transcripts, 0 credits on re-fetch | ❌ Fetches every time | | Webhooks | ✅ Async delivery | ❌ Not available | | Infrastructure | ✅ Managed API, 99.9% uptime | ❌ Self-hosted, you handle rate limits | | Rate limit handling | ✅ Managed for you | ❌ YouTube blocks you |

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Issues & Feedback

This is the public repository for YouTubeTranscript.dev. The API is proprietary, but we use this repo to collect feedback from our developer community.

How you can help:

• 🐛 Bug Reports — Found an issue with the API? Open an issue
• 💡 Feature Requests — Have an idea? Start a discussion
• 📖 Documentation Errors — Spot something wrong in the docs? Let us know
• ⭐ Star this repo — Help other developers find us

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Links

• 🌐 Website
• 📦 npm SDK
• 📖 API Documentation
• 📐 OpenAPI Spec (YAML)
• 💰 Pricing
• 📧 [email protected]
• 💼 LinkedIn

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License

The code examples and documentation in this repository are licensed under the MIT License.

The YouTubeTranscript.dev API is a proprietary service. See Terms of Service.

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