Youtube Transcript Api

Basic Transcript Extraction (Python)

import requests
API_KEY = "your_api_key"
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']}")

Basic Transcript Extraction (JavaScript/Node.js)

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);

Using the Node.js SDK

npm install youtube-audio-transcript-api

import { YouTubeTranscript } from "youtube-audio-transcript-api";
const yt = new YouTubeTranscript({ apiKey: "your_api_key" });
// Simple extraction
const result = await yt.getTranscript("dQw4w9WgXcQ");
// With translation
const translated = await yt.transcribe({
  video: "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  language: "es",
});
// Batch (up to 100 videos)
const batch = await yt.batch({
  video_ids: ["dQw4w9WgXcQ", "jNQXAC9IVRw", "9bZkp7q19f0"],
});

Basic Transcript Extraction (cURL)

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

Batch Processing (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", "jNQXAC9IVRw", "9bZkp7q19f0"]}'

Translation

Add "language": "es" (or any ISO 639-1 code) to get the transcript translated:

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"}'

ASR Transcription (videos without captions)

For videos that don't have captions, use ASR with a webhook:

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"}'

This returns immediately with status: "processing". Results are delivered to the webhook URL when ready. Poll with GET /api/v2/jobs/{job_id} if not using webhooks.